JOHN  A.  SEAVERNS 


luno     univtngn   i      lid 


<r\s 


3   9090  013  420  365 


>C- 


Webster  Family  Libn 

Cummings  Si        ".  . . . 

Tufts 

200  i      )oro  Road 

North  Grafton,  MA  01536 


nary  Medicine 

y  Medicine  at 


WHIP  AND  SPUR 


WHIP  AND 
SPUR 

BY 

COL.   GEORGE  E.    WARING,  JR. 


NEW  YORK 
DOUBLEDAY,   PAGE   & 
COMPANY  .  .  .  MCMIV 


COPYRIGHT,   1897 
BY  DOUBLEDAY  &  McCLURE  CO. 


CONTENTS. 

♦— 

Page 

Vix 7 

Ruby 34 

Wettstein 67 

Campaigning  with  Max        ...  93 

How  I  got  my  Overcoat 138 

Two  Scouts 162 

In  the  Gloaming 186 

Fox-Hunting  in  England     ....  201 


WHIP   AND    SPUR. 


VIX. 


HEN  the  work  on  the  Central  Park  had 
fairly  commenced,  in  the  spring  of  1858, 
I  found  —  or  I  fancied  —  that  proper 
attention  to  my  scattered  duties  made  it  neces- 
sary that  I  should  have  a  saddle-horse. 

How  easily,  by  the  way,  the  arguments  that 
convince  us  of  these  pleasant  necessities  find 
their  way  to  the  understanding  ! 

Yet,  how  to  subsist  a  horse  after  buying  one, 
and  how  to  buy1?  The  memory  of  a  well-bred 
and  keen-eyed  gray,  dating  back  to  the  earliest 
days  of  my  boyhood,  and  forming  the  chief  fea- 
ture of  my  recollection  of  play-time   for  years  j 


8  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


an  idle  propensity,  not  a  whit  dulled  yet,  to 
linger  over  Leech's  long-necked  hunters,  and 
Herring's  field  scenes;  an  almost  superstitious 
faith  in  the  different  analyses  of  the  bones  of 
the  racer  and  of  the  cart-horse;  a  firm  belief 
in  Frank  Forester's  teachings  of  the  value  of 
"  blood,"  —  all  these  conspired  to  narrow  my 
range  of  selection,  and,  unfortunately,  to  con- 
fine it  to  a  very  expensive  class  of  horses. 

Unfortunately,  again,  the  commissioners  of  the 
Park  had  extremely  inconvenient  ideas  of  econ- 
omy, and  evidently  did  not  consider,  in  fixing 
their  schedule  of  salaries,  how  much  more  satis- 
factory our  positions  would  have  been  with  more 
generous  emolument. 

How  a  man  with  only  a  Park  salary,  and  with 
a  family  to  support,  could  set  up  a  saddle-horse, 
—  and  not  ride  to  the  dogs, — was  a  question  that 
exercised  not  a  little  of  my  engineering  talent 
for  weeks  ;  and  many  an  odd  corner  of  plans  and 
estimates  was  figured  over  with  calculations  of 
the  cost  of  forage  and  shoeing. 

Stable-room  was  plenty  and   free   in  the  con- 


vix.  9 

demned  buildings  of  the  former  occupants,  and 
a  little  "  over-time "  of  one  of  the  men  would 
suffice  for  the  grooming. 

I  finally  concluded  that,  by  giving  up  cigars, 
and  devoting  my  energies  to  the  pipe  in  their 
stead,  I  could  save  enough  to  pay  for  my  horse's 
keep;  and  so,  the  ways  and  means  having  been, 
in  this  somewhat  vague  manner,  provided,  the 
next  step  was  to  buy  a  horse.  To  tell  of  the 
days  passed  at  auction  sales  in  the  hope  (never 
there  realized)  of  finding  goodness  and  cheapness 
combined,  —  of  the  stationery  wasted  in  answer- 
ing advertisements  based  on  every  conceivable 
form  of  false  pretence ;  to  describe  the  number- 
less broken-kneed,  broken-winded,  and  broken- 
down  brutes  that  came  under  inspection,  —  would 
be  tedious  and  disheartening. 

Good  horses  there  were,  of  course,  though  very 
few  good  saddle-horses  (America  is  not  productive 
in  this  direction),  —  and  the  possible  animals  were 
held  at  impossible  prices. 

Those  who  rode  over  the  new  Park  lands  usu- 
ally rode  anything  but  good  saddle-horses.  Fast 
1* 


10  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

trotters,  stout  ponies,  tolerable  carriage-horses, 
capital  cart-horses,  there  were  in  plenty.  But 
the  clean-cut,  thin-crested,  bright-eyed,  fine-eared, 
steel-limbed  saddle-horse,  the  saddle-horse  par  ex- 
cellence, —  may  I  say  the  only  saddle-horse  1  — 
rarely  came  under  observation ;  and  when,  by  ex- 
ception, such  a  one  did  appear,  he  was  usually  so 
ridden  that  his  light  was  sadly  dimmed.  It  was 
hard  to  recognize  an  elastic  step  under  such  an 
unelastic  seat. 

Finally,  in  the  days  of  my  despair,  a  kind  sad- 
dler, —  kept  to  his  daily  awl  by  a  too  keen  eye 
for  sport,  and  still,  I  believe,  a  victim  to  his  pro- 
pensity for  laying  his  money  on  the  horse  that 
ought  to  win  but  don't,  —  hearing  of  my  ambi- 
tion (to  him  the  most  laudable  of  all  ambitions), 
came  to  put  me  on  the  long-sought  path. 

He  knew  a  mare,  or  he  had  known  one,  that 
would  exactly  suit  me.  She  was  in  a  bad  way 
now,  and  a  good  deal  run  down,  but  he  always 
thought  she  "  had  it  in  her,"  and  that  some  gen- 
tleman ought  to  keep  her  for  the  saddle,  — 
"  which,  in  my  mind,  sir,  she  be  the  finest  bit  of 


VI X.  11 

'orse-flesh  that  was  hever  imported,  sir."  That 
was  enough.  "Imported"  decided  my  case,  and 
I  listened  eagerly  to  the  enthusiastic  story,  —  a 
story  to  which  this  man's  life  was  bound  with 
threads  of  hard-earned  silver,  and  not  less  by  a 
real  honest  love  for  a  fine  animal.  He  had  never 
been  much  given  to  saving,  but  he  was  a  good 
workman,  and  the  little  he  had  saved  had  been 
blown  away  in  the  dust  that  clouded  his  favorite 
at  the  tail  of  the  race. 

Still,  he  attached  himself  to  her  person,  and 
followed  her  in  her  disgrace.  "  She  were  n't  quite 
quick  enough  for  the  turf,  sir,  but  she  be  a  good 
'un  for  a  gentleman's  'ack." 

He  had  watched  her  for  years,  and  scraped 
acquaintance  with  her  different  owners  as  fast  as 
she  had  changed  them,  and  finally,  when  she  was 
far  gone  with  pneumonia,  he  had  accepted  her  as 
a  gift,  and,  by  careful  nursing,  had  cured  her. 
Then,  for  a  time,  he  rode  her  himself,  and  his  eye 
brightened  as  he  told  of  her  leaps  and  her  stride. 
Of  course  he  rode  her  to  the  races,  and  —  one 
luckless  day  —  when  he  had  lost  everything,  and 


12  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


his  passion  had  got  the  better  of  his  prudence, 
he  staked  the  mare  herself  on  a  perfectly  sure 
,  thing  in  two-mile-heats.  Like  most  of  the  sure 
things  of  life,  this  venture  went  to  the  bad,  and 
the  mare  was  lost,  —  lost  to  a  Bull's  Head  dealer 
in  single  driving  horses.  "  I  see  her  in  his  stable 
ahfter  that,  sir;  and,  forbieten  she  were  twelve 
year  old,  sir,  and  'ad  'ad  a  'ard  life  of  it,  she  were 
the  youngest  and  likeliest  of  the  lot, — you'd 
swore  she  were  a  three-year-old,  sir." 

If  that  dealer  had  had  a  soul  above  trotting- 
wagons,  my  story  would  never  have  been  written ; 
but  all  was  fish  that  came  to  his  net,  and  this 
thoroughbred  lacer,  this  beautiful  creature  who 
had  never  worn  harness  in  her  life,  must  be 
shown  to  a  purchaser  who  was  seeking  something 
to  drive.  She  was  always  quick  to  decide,  and 
her  actions  followed  close  on  the  heels  of  her 
thought.  She  did  not  complicate  matters  by 
waiting  for  the  gentleman  to  get  into  the  wagon, 
but  then  and  there  —  on  the  instant  —  kicked  it 
to  kindlings.  This  ended  the  story.  She  had 
been   shown  at  a  high   figure,   and   was  subse- 


VI X.  13 

quently  sold  for  a  song,  —  he  could  tell  me  no 
more.  She  had  passed  to  the  lower  sphere  of 
equine  life  and  usefulness,  —  he  had  heard  of  a 
fish-wagon,  but  he  knew  nothing  about  it.  What 
he  did  know  was,  that  the  dealer  was  a  dreadful 
jockey,  and  that  it  would  never  do  to  ask  him. 
Now,  here  was  something  to  live  for,  —  a  sort  of 
princess  in  disgrace,  whom  it  would  be  an  honor 
to  rescue,  and  my  horse-hunting  acquired  a  new 
interest. 

By  easy  stages,  I  cultivated  the  friendship  of 
the  youth  who,  in  those  days,  did  the  morning's 
sweeping-out  at  the  Bull's  Head  Hotel.  He  had 
grown  up  in  the  alluring  shades  of  the  horse- 
market,  and  his  daily  communion  from  childhood 
had  been  with  that  "noble  animal."  To  him 
horses  were  the  individuals  of  the  world,  —  men 
their  necessary  attendants,  and  of  only  attendant 
importance.  Of  course  he  knew  of  this  black  she- 
devil;  and  he  thought  that  "a  hoss  that  could 
trot  like  she  could  on  the  halter "  must  be  crazy 
not  to  go  in  harness. 

However,  he  thought  she  had  got  her  deserts 


H  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

now,  for  he  had  seen  her,  only  a  few  weeks  before, 
"  a  draggin'  clams  for  a  feller  in  the  Tenth  Ave- 
ner."  Here  was  a  clew  at  last,  —  clams  and  the 
Tenth  Avenue.  For  several  days  the  scent  grew 
cold.  The  people  of  the  Licensed  Vender  part  of 
this  street  seemed  to  have  little  interest  in  their 
neighbors'  horses ;  but  I  found  one  man,  an  Irish 
grocer,  who  had  been  bred  a  stable-boy  to  the 
Marquis  of  Waterford,  and  who  did  know  of  a 
"poor  old  screw  of  a  black  mare "  that  had  a  good 
head,  and  might  be  the  one  I  was  looking  for; 
but,  if  she  was,  he  thought  I  might  as  well  give  it 
up,  for  she  was  all  broken  down,  and  would  never 
be  good  for  anything  again. 

Taking  the  address,  I  went  to  a  stable-yard,  in 
what  was  then  the  very  edge  of  the  town,  and 
here  I  found  a  knowing  young  man,  who  devoted 
his  time  to  peddling  clams  and  potatoes  between 
New  York  and  Sing  Sing.  Clams  up,  and  pota- 
toes down,  —  twice  every  week,  —  distance  thirty 
miles ;  road  hilly ;  and  that  was  the  wagon  he 
did  it  with,  —  a  heavy  wagon  with  a  heavy  arched 
top,  and  room  for  a  heavy  load,  and  only  shafts 


VIX.  15 

for  a  single  horse.  In  reply  to  my  question,  he 
said  he  changed  horses  pretty  often,  because  the 
work  broke  them  down  ;  but  he  had  a  mare  now 
that  had  been  at  it  for  three  months,  and  he 
thought  she  would  last  some  time  longer.  "She  's 
pretty  thin,  but  you  ought  to  see  her  trot  with 
that  wagon."  With  an  air  of  idle  curiosity,  I 
asked  to  see  her,  —  I  had  gone  shabbily  dressed, 
not  to  excite  suspicion ;  for  men  of  the  class  I 
had  to  treat  with  are  usually  sharp  horse-traders, 
—  and  this  fellow,  clam-pedler  though  he  was, 
showed  an  enthusiastic  alacrity  in  taking  me  to 
her  stall.  She  had  won  even  his  dull  heart,  and 
he  spoke  of  her  gently,  as  he  made  the  most  of 
her  good  points,  and  glossed  over  her  wretched 
condition. 

Poor  Vixen  (that  had  been  her  name  in  her 
better  days,  and  it  was  to  be  her  name  again), 
she  had  found  it  hard  kicking  against  the  pricks  ! 
Clam-carts  are  stronger  than  trotting-wagons,  and 
even  her  efforts  had  been  vain.  Sho  had  suc- 
cumbed to  dire  necessity,  and  earned  her  ignoble 
oats  with  dogged  fidelity.     She  had  a  little  warm 


16  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

corner  in  her  driver's  affections,  —  as  she  always 
had  in  the  affections  of  all  who  came  to  know  her 
well,  —  but  her  lot  was  a  very  hard  one.  Worn 
to  a  skeleton,  with  sore  galls  wherever  the  har- 
ness had  pressed  her,  her  pasterns  bruised  by 
clumsy  shoes,  her  silky  coat  burned  brown  by 
the  sun,  and  her  neck  curved  upward,  it  would 
have  needed  more  than  my  knowledge  of  anat- 
omy to  see  anything  good  in  her  but  for  her 
wonderful  head.  This  was  the  perfection  of  a 
horse's  head,  —  small,  bony,  and  of  perfect  shape, 
with  keen,  deer-like  eyes,  and  thin,  active  ears; 
it  told  the  whole  story  of  her  virtues,  and 
showed  no  trace  of  her  sufferings.  Her  royal 
blood  shone  out  from  her  face,  and  kept  it 
beautiful. 

My  mind  was  made  up,  and  Vixen  must  be 
mine  at  any  cost.  Still,  it  was  important  to 
me  to  buy  as  cheaply  as  I  could,  —  and  desir- 
able, above  all,  not  to  be  jockeyed  in  a  horse- 
trade  j  so  it  required  some  diplomacy  (an  account 
of  which  would  not  be  edifying  here)  to  bring 
the    transaction    to    its    successful    close.      The 


VI x.  17 

pendulum  which   swung   between   offer  and  de- 
mand finally  rested  at  seventy-five  dollars. 

She  was  brought  to  me  at  the  Park  on  a 
bright  moonlight  evening  in  June,  and  we  were 
called  out  to  see  her.  I  think  she  knew  that 
her  harness  days  were  over,  and  she  danced  off 
to  her  new  quarters  as  gay  as  a  colt  in  train- 
ing. That  night  my  wakefulness  would  have 
done  credit  to  a  boy  of  sixteen;  and  I  was  up 
with  the  dawn,  and  bound  for  a  ride ;  but  when 
I  examined  poor  Vix  again  in  her  stable,  it 
seemed  almost  cruel  to  think  of  using  her  at 
all  for  a  month.  She  was  so  thin,  so  worn,  so 
bruised,  that  I  determined  to  give  her  a  long 
rest  and  good  care,  —  only  I  must  try  her  once, 
just  to  get  a  leg  over  her  for  five  minutes,  and 
then  she  should  come  back  and  be  cared  for 
until  really  well.  It  was  a  weak  thing  to  do, 
and  I  confess  it  with  all  needful  humiliation, 
but  I  mounted  her  at  once ;  and,  although  I 
had  been  a  rider  all  my  days,  this  was  the  first 
time  I  had  ever  really  ridden.  For  the  first 
time   in   my   life  I  felt   as   though   I   had   four 


18  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

whalebone  legs  of  my  own,  worked  by  steel 
muscles  in  accordance  with  my  will,  but  with- 
out even  a  conscious  effort  of  will. 

That  that  anatomy  of  a  horse  should  so  easily, 
so  playfully,  handle  my  heavy  weight  was  a 
mystery,  and  is  a  mystery  still.  She  carried 
me  in  the  same  high,  long-reaching,  elastic  trot 
that  we  sometimes  see  a  young  horse  strike  when 
first  turned  into  a  field.  A  low  fence  was  near 
by,  and  I  turned  her  toward  it.  She  cleared  it 
with  a  bound  that  sent  all  my  blood  thrilling 
through  my  veins,  and  trotted  on  again  as  though 
nothing  had  occurred.  The  five  minutes'  turn 
was  taken  with  so  much  ease,  with  such  evident 
delight,  that  I  made  it  a  virtue  to  indulge  her 
with  a  longer  course  and  a  longer  stride.  We 
went  to  the  far  corners  of  the  Park,  and  tried  all 
our  paces;  all  were  marvellous  for  the  power  so 
easily  exerted  and  the  evident  power  in  reserve. 

Yes,  Frank  Forester  was  right,  blood  horses  are 
made  of  finer  stuff  than  others.  My  intention  of 
giving  the  poor  old  mare  a  month's  rest  was  never 
carried  out,  because  each  return  to  her  old  recrea- 


v/x.  19 

tion  —  it  was  never  work  —  made  it  more  evi- 
dent that  the  simple  change  in  her  life  was  all  she 
needed ;  and,  although  in  constant  use  from  the 
first,  she  soon  put  on  the  flesh  and  form  of  a 
sound  horse.  Her  minor  bruises  were  obliterated, 
and  her  more  grievous  ones  grew  into  permanent 
scars,  —  blemishes,  but  only  skin  deep ;  for  every 
fibre  of  every  muscle,  and  every  tendon  and  bone 
in  her  whole  body,  was  as  strong  and  supple  as 
spring  steel. 

The  Park  afforded  good  leaping  in  those  days. 
Some  of  the  fences  were  still  standing  around  the 
abandoned  gardens,  and  new  ditches  and  old 
brooks  were  plenty.  Vixen  gave  me  lessons  in 
fencing  which  a  few  years  later,  in  time  of  graver 
need,  stood  me  in  good  stead.  She  weighed  less 
than  four  times  the  weight  that  she  carried ;  yet 
she  cleared  a  four-foot  fence  with  apparent  ease, 
and  once,  in  a  moment  of  excitement,  she  carried 
me  over  a  brook,  with  a  clear  leap  of  twenty-six 
feet,  measured  from  the  taking-off  to  the  landing. 

Her  feats  of  endurance  were  equal  to  her  feats 
of  strength.     I  once  rode  her  from  Yorkville  to 


20  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

Rye  (twenty-one  miles)  in  an  hour  and  forty-five 
minutes,  including  a  rest  of  twenty  minutes  at 
Pelham  Bridge,  and  I  frequently  rode  twenty-five 
miles  out  in  the  morning  and  back  in  the  after- 
noon. When  put  to  her  work,  her  steady  road 
gallop  (mostly  on  the  grassy  sides)  was  fifteen 
miles  an  hour. 

Of  course  these  were  extreme  cases ;  but  she 
never  showed  fatigue  from  them,  and  she  did 
good  service  nearly  every  day,  winter  and  sum- 
mer, from  her  twelfth  to  her  fifteenth  year,  keep- 
ing always  in  good  condition,  though  thin  as  a 
racer,  and  looking  like  a  colt  at  the  end  of  the 
time.  Horsemen  never  guessed  her  age  at  more 
than  half  of  what  it  actually  was. 

Beyond  the  average  of  even  the  most  intelligent 
horses,  she  showed  some  almost  human  traits. 
Above  all  was  she  fond  of  children,  and  would 
quiet  down  from  her  wildest  moods  to  allow  a 
child  to  be  carried  on  the  pommel.  When  en- 
gaged in  this  serious  duty,  it  was  difficult  to 
excite  her,  or  to  urge  her  out  of  a  slow  and 
measured  pace,  although  usually  ready  for  any 


VIX.  21 

extravagance.  Not  the  least  marked  of  her  pecu- 
liarities was  her  inordinate  vanity.  On  a  country 
road,  or  among  the  workmen  of  the  Park,  she  was 
as  staid  and  business-like  as  a  parson's  cob ;  but 
let  a  carriage  or  a  party  of  visitors  come  in  sight, 
and  she  would  give  herself  the  prancing  airs  of  a 
circus  horse,  seeming  to  watch  as  eagerly  for  some 
sign  of  approval,  and  to  be  made  as  happy  by  it, 
as  though  she  only  lived  to  be  admired.  Many 
a  time  have  I  heard  the  exclamation,  "What  a 
beautiful  horse  ! "  and  Vix  seemed  to  hear  it  too, 
and  to  appreciate  it  quite  as  keenly  as  I  did.  A 
trip  down  the  Fifth  Avenue  in  the  afternoon  was 
an  immense  excitement  to  her,  and  she  was  more 
fatigued  by  it  than  by  a  twenty-mile  gallop. 
However  slowly  she  travelled,  it  was  always  with 
the  high  springing  action  of  a  fast  trot,  or  with 
that  long-stepping,  sidelong  action  that  the 
French  call  cb  deux  pistes;  few  people  allowed 
her  to  pass  without  admiring  notice. 

Her  most  satisfactory  trait  was  her  fondness 
for  her  master;  she  was  as  good  company  as  a 
dog, — better,  perhaps,  because  she  seemed  more 


22  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

really  a  part  of  one's  self;  and  she  was  quick 
to  respond  to  my  changing  moods.  I  have  some- 
times, when  unable  to  sleep,  got  up  in  the  night 
and  saddled  for  a  ride,  usually  ending  in  a  long 
walk  home,  with  the  bridle  over  my  arm,  and  the 
old  mare's  kind  face  close  beside  my  own,  in  some- 
thing akin  to  human  sympathy;  she  had  a  way 
of  sighing,  when  things  were  especially  sad,  that 
made  her  very  comforting  to  have  about.  So  we 
went  on  for  three  years,  always  together,  and 
always  very  much  to  each  other.  We  had  our 
little  unhappy  episodes,  when  she  was  pettish  and 
I  was  harsh,  —  sometimes  her  feminine  freaks 
were  the  cause,  sometimes  my  masculine  blunder- 
ing, —  but  we  always  made  it  up,  and  were  soon 
good  friends  again,  and,  on  the  whole,  we  were 
both  better  for  the  friendship.  I  am  sure  that  I 
was,  and  some  of  my  more  grateful  recollections 
are  connected  with  this  dumb  companion. 

The  spring  of  1861  opened  a  new  life  for 
both  of  us,  —  a  sad  and  a  short  one  for  poor 
Vix. 

I  never   knew  just   how  much    influence    she 


VIX.  23 

had  in  getting  my  commission,  but,  judging  by 
the  manner  of  the  other  field  officers  of  the  regi- 
ment, she  was  evidently  regarded  as  the  better 
half  of  the  new  acquisition.  The  pomp  and  cir- 
cumstance of  glorious  war  suited  her  temper 
exactly,  and  it  was  ludicrous  to  see  her  satisfac- 
tion in  first  wearing  her  gorgeous  red-bordered 
shabrack;  for  a  time  she  carried  her  head  on 
one  side  to  see  it.  She  conceived  a  new  affec- 
tion for  me  from  the  moment  when  she  saw  me 
bedecked  with  the  dazzling  bloom  that  preceded 
the  serious  fruitage  of  the  early  New  York  vol- 
unteer organizations. 

At  last  the  thrilling  day  came.  Broadway 
was  alive  from  end  to  end  with  flags  and  white 
cambric  and  sad  faces.  Another  thousand  were 
going  to  the  war.  With  Swiss  bugle-march  and 
chanted  Marseillaise,  we  made  our  solemn  way 
through  the  grave  and  anxious  throng.  To  us 
it  was  naturally  a  day  of  sore  trial;  but  with 
brilliant,  happy  Vixen  it  was  far  different;  she 
was  leaving  no  friends  behind,  was  going  to  meet 
no  unknown  peril.     She  was  showing  her  royal, 


24  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


stylish  beauty  to  an  admiring  crowd,  and  she 
acted  as  though  she  took  to  her  own  especial 
behoof  every  cheer  that  rang  from  Union  Square 
to  Cortlandt  Street.  It  was  the  glorious  day  of 
her  life,  and,  as  we  dismounted  at  the  Jersey 
ferry,  she  was  trembling  still  with  the  delight- 
ful excitement. 

At  Washington  we  were  encamped  east  of  the 
Capitol,  and  for  a  month  were  busy  in  getting 
settled  in  the  new  harness.  Mr.  Lincoln  used 
to  drive  out  sometimes  to  our  evening  drill,  and 
he  always  had  a  pleasant  word  —  as  he  always 
had  for  every  one,  and  as  every  one  had  for 
her  —  for  my  charming  thoroughbred,  who  had 
made  herself  perfeetly  at  home  with  the  troops, 
and  enjoyed  every  display  of  the  marvellous 
raiment  of  the  regiment. 

On  the  4th  of  July  we  crossed  the  Potomac 
and  went  below  Alexandria,  where  we  lay  in 
idle  preparation  for  the  coming  disaster.  On 
the  16th  we  marched,  in  Blenker's  brigade  of 
Miles's  division,  and  we  passed  the  night  in  a 
hay-field,  with   a  confusion   of  horses'  feed   and 


VI X.  25 

riders'  bed,  that  brought  Vix  and  me  very  close- 
ly together.  On  the  18th  we  reached  the  valley 
this  side  of  Centreville,  while  the  skirmish  of 
Blackburn's  Ford  was  going  on,  —  a  skirmish 
now,  but  a  battle  then.  For  three  nights  and 
two  days  we  lay  in  the  bushes,  waiting  for  ra- 
tions and  orders.  On  Sunday  morning  McDow- 
ell's army  moved  out ;  —  we  all  know  the  rest. 
Miles's  thirteen  thousand  fresh  troops  lay  with- 
in sight  and  sound  of  the  lost  battle-field,  —  he 
drunk  and  unable,  even  if  not  unwilling,  to  take 
them  to  the  rescue,  —  and  all  we  did  was,  late 
in  the  evening,  to  turn  back  a  few  troopers  of 
the  Black  Horse  Cavalry,  the  moral  effect  of 
whose  unseen  terrors  was  driving  our  herds, 
panting,  back  to  the  Potomac.  Late  in  the 
night  we  turned  our  backs  on  our  idle  field, 
and  brought  up  the  rear  of  the  sad  retreat. 
Our  regiment  was  the  last  to  move  out,  and 
Vix  and  I  were  with  the  rear-guard.  Wet,  cold, 
tired,  hungry,  unpursued,  we  crept  slowly  through 
the  scattered  debris  of  the  broken-up  camp  equi- 
page, and  dismally  crossed  the  Long  Bridge  in  a 
2 


26  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

pitiless  rain,  as  Monday's  evening  was  closing 
in.  0,  the  dreadful  days  that  followed,  when  a 
dozen  resolute  men  might  have  taken  Washing- 
ton, and  have  driven  the  army  across  the  Chesa- 
peake, when  everything  was  filled  with  gloom 
and  rain  and  grave  uncertainty ! 

Again  the  old  mare  came  to  my  aid.  My  regi- 
ment was  not  a  pleasant  one  to  be  with,  for  its 
excellent  material  did  not  redeem  its  very  bad 
commander,  and  I  longed  for  service  with  the 
cavalry.  Fremont  was  going  to  St.  Louis,  and 
his  chief  of  staff  was  looking  for  cavalry  officers. 
He  had  long  known  Vixen,  and  was  kind  enough 
to  tell  me  that  he  wanted  her  for  the  new  organ- 
ization, and  (as  I  was  her  necessary  appendage), 
he  procured  my  transfer,  and  we  set  out  for  the 
West.  It  was  not  especially  flattering  to  me 
to  be  taken  on  these  grounds ;  but  it  was  flatter- 
ing to  Vixen,  and  that  was  quite  as  pleasant. 

Arrived  at  St.  Louis,  we  set  about  the  organ- 
ization of  the  enthusiastic  thousands  who  rushed 
to  serve  under  Fremont.  Whatever  there  was 
of  ostentatious  display,  Vixen   and  I  took  part 


VJX.  27 

in,  but  this  was  not  much.  Once  we  turned 
out  in  great  state  to  receive  Prince  Plon-Plon, 
but  that  was  in  the  night,  and  he  didn't  come 
after  all.  Once  again  there  was  a  review  of  all 
the  troops,  and  that  was  magnificent.  This  was 
all.  There  was  no  coach  and  four,  nor  anything 
else  but  downright  hard  work  from  early  morning 
till  late  bedtime,  from  Sunday  morning  till  Satur- 
day night.  For  six  weeks,  while  my  regiment  of 
German  horsemen  was  fitting  up  and  drilling  at 
the  Abbey  Race-track,  I  rode  a  cart-horse,  and  kept 
the  mare  in  training  for  the  hard  work  ahead. 

At  last  we  were  off,  going  up  the  Missouri, 
sticking  in  its  mud,  poling  over  its  shoals,  and 
being  bored  generally.  At  Jefferson  City  Vixen 
made  her  last  appearance  in  ladies'  society,  as  by 
the  twilight  fires  of  the  General's  camp  she  went 
through  her  graceful  paces  before  Mrs.  Fremont 
and  her  daughter.  I  pass  over  the  eventful  pur- 
suit of  Price's  army,  because  the  subject  of  my 
story  played  only  a  passive  part  in  it.  At  Spring- 
field I  tried  her  nerve  by  jumping  her  over  the 
dead  horses  on  brave  Zagonyi's  bloody  field ;  and, 


28  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

although  distastefully,  she  did  my  bidding  with- 
out flinching,  when  she  found  it  must  be  done. 
The  camp-life  at  Springfield  was  full  of  excite- 
ment and  earnestness ;  Price,  with  his  army,  was 
near  at  hand  (or  we  believed  that  he  was,  which 
was  essentially  the  same).  Our  work  in  the  cav- 
alry was  very  active,  and  Vix  had  hard  service 
on  insufficient  food,  —  she  seemed  to  be  sustained 
by  sheer  nervous  strength. 

At  last  the  order  to  advance  was  given,  and  we 
were  to  move  out  at  daybreak;  then  came  a 
countermanding  order;  and  then,  late  in  the 
evening,  Fremont's  farewell.  He  had  been  re- 
lieved. There  was  genuine  and  universal  grief. 
Good  or  bad,  competent  or  incompetent,  —  this 
is  not  the  place  to  argue  that,  —  he  was  the  life 
and  the  soul  of  his  army,  and  it  was  cruelly 
wronged  in  his  removal.  Spiritless  and  full  of 
disappointment,  we  again  turned  back  from  our 
aim ;  —  then  would  have  been  Price's  opportunity. 

It  was  the  loveliest  Indian-summer  weather, 
and  the  wonderful  opal  atmosphere  of  the  Ozark 
Mountains  was  redolent  with   the  freshness  of  a 


VIX.  29 

second  spring.  As  had  always  been  my  habit  in 
dreamy  or  unhappy  moods,  I  rode  my  poor  tired 
mare  for  companionship's  sake,  —  I  ought  not  to 
have  done  it,  —  I  would  give  much  not  to  have 
done  it,  for  I  never  rode  her  again.  The  march 
was  long,  and  the  noonday  sun  was  oppressive. 
She  who  had  never  faltered  before  grew  nervous 
and  shaky  now,  and  once,  after  fording  the 
Pomme-de-Terre  in  deep  water,  she  behaved 
wildly ;  but  when  I  talked  to  her,  called  her 
a  good  girl,  and  combed  her  silken  mane  with 
my  fbgers,  she  came  back  to  her  old  way,  and 
went  on  nicely.  Still  she  perspired  unnaturally, 
and  I  felt  uneasy  about  her  when  I  dismounted 
and  gave  her  rein  to  Rudolf,  my  orderly. 

Late  in  the  night,  when  the  moon  was  in 
mid-heaven,  he  came  to  my  tent,  and  told  me 
that  something  was  the  matter  with  Vixen.  My 
adjutant  and  I  hastened  out,  and  there  we  be- 
held her  in  the  agony  of  a  brain  fever.  She 
was  the  most  painfully  magnificent "  animal  I 
ever  saw.  Crouched  on  the  ground,  with  her 
forelegs  stretched  out  and  wide  apart,  she  was 


30  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

swaying  to  and  fro,  with  hard  and  stertorous 
breath,  —  every  vein  swollen  and  throbbing  in 
the  moonlight.  De  Grandele,  our  quiet  veter- 
inary surgeon,  had  been  called  while  it  was  yet 
time  to  apply  the  lancet.  As  the  hot  stream 
spurted  from  her  neck  she  grew  easier ;  her 
eye  recovered  its  gentleness,  and  she  laid  her 
head  against  my  breast  with  the  old  sigh,  and 
seemed  to  know  and  to  return  all  my  love  for 
her.  I  sat  with  her  until  the  first  gray  of 
dawn,  when  she  had  grown  quite  calm,  and 
then  I  left  her  with  De  Grandele  and  Rudolf 
while  I  went  to  my  duties.  We  must  march 
at  five  o'clock,  and  poor  Vixen  could  not  be 
moved.  The  thought  of  leaving  her  was  very 
bitter,  but  I  feared  it  must  be  done,  and  I 
asked  De  Grandele  how  he  could  best  end  her 
sufferings,  —  or  was  there  still  some  hope1?  He 
shook  his  head  mournfully,  like  a  kind-hearted 
doctor  as  he  was,  and  said  that  he  feared  not ; 
but  still,  as  I  was  so  fond  of  her,  if  I  would 
leave  him  six  men,  he  would  do  his  best  to 
bring  her  on,  and,  if  he   could    not,  he  would 


vix.  31 

not  leave  her  alive.  I  have  had  few  harder 
duties  than  to  march  that  morning.  Four  days 
after,  De  Grandele  sent  a  message  to  me  at  our 
station  near  Rolla,  that  he  was  coming  on  nice- 
ly, and  hoped  to  be  in  at  nightfall.  "  Vixen 
seems  to  be  better  and  stronger."  At  nightfall 
they  came,  the  poor  old  creature  stepping  slowly 
and  timidly  over  the  rough  road,  all  the  old 
fire  and  force  gone  out  of  her,  and  with  only  a 
feeble  whinny  as  she  saw  me  walking  to  meet 
her.  We  built  for  her  the  best  quarters  we 
could  under  the  mountain-side,  and  spread  her 
a  soft  bed  of  leaves.  There  was  now  hope  that 
she  would  recover  sufficiently  to  be  sent  to  St. 
Louis  to  be  nursed. 

That  night,  an  infernal  brute  of  a  troop  horse 
that  had  already  killed  Ludlow's  charger,  led  by 
some  fiendish  spirit,  broke  into  Vixen's  enclosure, 
and  with  one  kick  laid  open  her  hock  joint. 

In  vain  they  told  me  that  she  was  incurable. 
I  could  not  let  her  die  now,  when  she -was  just 
restored  to  me;  and  I  forced  from  De  Grandele 
the  confession   that   she  might  be  slung  up  and 


32  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

so  bound  that  the  wound  would  heal,  although 
the  joint  must  be  stiff.  She  could  never  carry 
me  again,  but  she  could  be  my  pet ;  and  I 
would  send  her  home,  and  make  her  happy  for 
many  a  long  year  yet.  We  moved  camp  two 
miles,  to  the  edge  of  the  town,  and  she  followed, 
painfully  and  slowly,  the  injured  limb  dragging 
behind  her;  I  could  not  give  her  up.  She  was 
picketed  near  my  tent,  and  for  some  days  grew 
no  worse. 

Finally,  one  lovely  Sunday  morning,  I  found 
her  sitting  on  her  haunches  like  a  dog,  patient 
and  gentle,  and  wondering  at  her  pain.  She  re- 
mained in  this  position  all  day,  refusing  food.  I 
stroked  her  velvet  crest,  and  coaxed  her  with 
sugar.  She  rubbed  her  nose  against  my  arm, 
and  was  evidently  thankful  for  my  caresses,  but 
she  showed  no  disposition  to  rise.  The  adjutant 
led  me  into  my  tent  as  he  would  have  led  me 
from  the  bedside  of  a  dying  friend.  I  turned  to 
look  back  at  poor  Vixen,  and  she  gave  me  a 
little  neigh  of  farewell. 

They  told  me  then,  and  they  told  it  very  ten- 


VIX.  33 

derly,  that  there  was  no  possibility  that  she 
could  get  well  in  camp,  and  that  they  wanted 
me  to  give  her  over  to  them.  The  adjutant 
sat  by  me,  and  talked  of  the  old  days  when  I 
had  had  her  at  home,  and  when  he  had  known 
her  well.  We  brought  back  all  of  her  pleasant 
ways,  and  agreed  that  her  trouble  ought  to  be 
ended. 

As  we  talked,  a  single  shot  was  fired,  and  all 
was  over.  The  setting  sun  was  shining  through 
the  bare  November  branches,  and  lay  warm  in 
my  open  tent-front.  The  band,  which  had  been 
brought  out  for  the  only  funeral  ceremony, 
breathed  softly  Kreutzer's  touching  "  Die  Ka- 
pelle,"  and  the  sun  went  down  on  one  of  the 
very  sad  days  of  my  life. 

The  next  morning  I  carved  deeply  in  the 
bark  of  a  great  oak-tree,  at  the  side  of  the 
Pacific  Railroad,  beneath  which  they  had  buried 
my  lovely  mare,  a  simple  VIX ;  and  some  day 
I  shall  go  to  scrape  the  moss  from  the  inscrip- 
tion. 

2*  o 


RUBY. 


WAS  a  colonel  commanding  a  regiment 
of  German  cavalrymen  in  South  Mis- 
souri, and  must  have  a  horse;  it  was 
desirable  to  be  conspicuously  well  mounted,  and 
so  it  must  be  a  showy  horse  ;  being  a  heavy 
weight  and  a  rough  rider,  it  must  be  a  good 
horse.  With  less  rank,  I  might  have  been  com- 
pelled to  take  a  very  ordinary  mount  and  be 
content :  my  vanity  would  not  have  availed  me, 
and  my  rough  riding  must  have  ceased. 

But  I  was  chief  ruler  of  the  little  world  that 
lay  encamped  on  the  beautiful  banks  of  the  Rou- 
bie  d'Eaux ;  and  probably  life  was  easier  to  all 
under  me  when  I  was  satisfied  and  happy.  I  an? 
not  conscious  of  having  been  mean  and  crabbed, 
or  of  favoring  those  who  favored  me  to  the  disad- 


RUBY.  35 

vantage  of  those  who  did  not.  I  cannot  recall 
an  instance  of  taking  a  bribe,  even  in  the  form 
of  a  pleasant  smile.  It  was  probably  easier,  in 
the  long  run,  to  be  fair  than  to  be  unfair,  and 
therefore  the  laziest  private  ever  ordered  on  extra 
duty  could  not  lay  his  hand  on  his  heart  and  say 
he  thinks  it  was  done  because  he  was  not  diligent 
in  foraging  for  turkeys  and  hens  for  my  private 
mess.  I  had  very  early  in  life  been  impressed 
with  the  consciousness  that  the  way  of  the  trans- 
gressor is  not  easy ;  and  as  I  wanted  my  way  to 
be  easy,  I  fell  into  the  way  of  not  transgressing. 
This  may  not  have  been  a  very  worthy  motive 
to  actuate  the  conduct  of  a  military  commander ; 
but  perhaps  it  was  as  good  as  the  average  in 
our  Department  of  the  Southwest,  where,  if  the 
truth  must  be  told,  virtue  did  not  have  it  all  its 
own  way,  — we  were  different  from  troops  farther 
east ;  and  although  it  made  me  sometimes  wince 
to  have  my  conduct  ascribed  to  a  noble  upright- 
ness of  purpose,  and  showed  that  it  wtfuld  really 
have  been  more  honest  not  to  have  been  quite 
so  good,  yet  one  should  perhaps  be  satisfied  with 


36 


WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


having  carried  out  one's  intention  of  treating  every 
man  in  the  command,  officer  or  soldier,  as  nearly 
as  he  should  be  treated  as  the  interests  of  the  pub- 
lic service,  the  good  of  the  individual  himself,  and 
one's  own  personal  convenience  would  allow. 

Therefore,  I  say,  I  am  not  conscious  of  having 
favored  those  who  favored  me,  to  the  disadvan- 
tage of  those  who  did  not;  neither  do  I  think 
that  (at  this  stage  of  our  acquaintance)  the  Grafs 
and  Barons  and  simple  Mister  Vons,  of  whom  the 
command  was  so  largely  composed,  entertained 
the  hope  of  personal  benefit  when  they  laid  their 
kindnesses  at  my  accustomed  feet,  and  tried  to 
smooth  my  way  of  life. 

The  headquarters'  mess  was  generally  well  sup- 
plied, —  and  no  questions  asked.  My  relations 
with  most  of  the  command  were  kindly,  and  it 
apparently  came  to  be  understood  —  for  German 
cavalrymen  are  not  without  intelligence  —  that 
the  happiness  of  the  individual  members  of  the 
regiment  depended  rather  on  the  happiness  of 
its  colonel  than  on  any  direct  bids  for  his  favor. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  I  am  not  conscious  of  having 


RUBY.  37 

received  such  direct  appeals,  and  I  am  entirely 
conscious  of  the  fullest  measure  of  happiness 
that  my  circumstances  would  allow ;  not  an  ec- 
stasy of  delight,  —  far  from  that,  —  but  a  com- 
fortable sense  of  such  well-fed,  well-paid,  well- 
encamped,  and  pleasantly  occupied  virtue  as  had 
left  nothing  undone  that  my  subordinates  could 
be  made  to  do,  and  did  nothing  that  my  condi- 
tions rendered  difficult.  My  own  good-humor 
was  equalled  by  that  of  the  regiment  at  large, 
and  the  beetling  sides  of  the  Ozark  valleys  no- 
where sheltered  a  happier  campful  of  jolly  good 
fellows  than  the  Vierte  Missouri  Cavalry. 

We  lay  on  the  marvellous  Roubie  d'Eaux,  at  its 
source ;  no  such  babbling  brook  as  trickles  from 
the  hillside  springs  of  New  England,  but  a  roar- 
ing torrent,  breaking  at  once  from  a  fathomless 
vent  in  the  mountain.  The  processes  of  forma- 
tion with  these  South  Missouri  rivers  are  all  hid- 
den from  sight,  but,  far  away  in  the  topmost 
caves  of  the  Ozark  hills,  the  little  streamlets 
trickle,  and  unite  for  a  larger  and  ever  larger 
flow,  gorging  at  last  the  huge  caverns  of  the  lime- 


38  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

stone  rock  and  bursting  upon  the  world  a  full- 
grown  river.  Within  our  camp  this  wonderful 
spring  broke  forth,  and  close  at  hand  was  a  large 
grist-mill  that  it  drove.  We  were  a  self-sustain- 
ing community,  —  in  this,  that  we  foraged  our 
own  corn  and  ground  our  own  meal.  With  simi- 
lar industry  we  provided  ourselves  with  fish,  flesh, 
and  fowl. 

The  trees  were  bare  with  the  November  frosts, 
but  the  Indian  summer  had  come,  and,  day  after 
day,  it  bathed  every  twig  and  spray  with  its  am- 
ber breath,  warming  all  nature  to  a  second  life, 
and  floating  the  remoter  hills  far  away  into  a  hazy 
dreamland. 

But  personally,  notwithstanding  all  this,  I  was 
not  content :  I  was  practically  a  dismounted  cav- 
alryman. Indeed,  it  would  even  have  been  a  pity 
to  see  a  colonel  of  infantry  riding  such  brutes  as 
fell  to  my  lot,  for  good  weight-carriers  were  rare 
in  that  section.  I  had  paid  a  very  high  price  for 
a  young  thoroughbred  stallion  (afterwards,  hap- 
pily, sold  for  a  large  advance),  only  to  find  him  a 
year  too   young  for  his  work,  and  the  regiment 


RUBY.  39 

had  been  scoured  in  vain  for  an  available  mount. 
I  would  have  gone  any  reasonable  length,  even  in 
injustice,  to  secure  such  an  animal  as  was  needed. 
It  was  not  easy  to  make  up  one's  mind  to  order 
a  soldier  to  give  up  a  horse  he  was  fond  of,  and 
some  soldier  had  an  especial  fondness  for  all  but 
the  worthless  brutes.  My  reluctance  to  do  this 
was  perhaps  not  lessened  by  the  fact  that  it  was 
forbidden  for  officers  to  ride  United  States  horses. 
It  finally  became  evident  that  the  chances  were 
very  small  of  ever  finding  a  suitable  animal,  and 
I  even  went  out,  on  one  shooting  excursion, 
mounted  on  a  mule. 

Up  to  this  time  the  regiment  had  been  all  that 
could  be  asked,  but  now  it  seemed  to  contain 
a  thousand  ill-tempered,  sore-headed  men.  The 
whole  camp  was  awry.  Some  of  the  officers  inti- 
mated that  this  was  all  the  fault  of  the  adjutant ; 
that  the  orders  from  headquarters  had  lately  been 
unusually  harsh.  This  officer,  when  remonstrated 
with,  insisted  that  he  had  only  transmitted  the 
exact  orders  given  him,  and  I  knew  that  my  own 
action  had  always  been  reasonable,  —  on  principle 


40  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

so.  Sometimes  one  almost  wished  himself  back 
in  civil  life,  away  from  such  constant  annoy- 
ances. 

We  had  in  the  regiment  one  Captain  Graf  von 
Gluckmansklegge,  who  was  in  many  respects  the 
most  accomplished  and  skilful  officer  of  us  all. 
His  life  had  been  passed  in  the  profession,  and  he 
had  only  left  his  position  of  major  in  a  Bavarian 
Uhlan  regiment  to  draw  his  sabre  in  defence  of 
"die  Freiheit,"  in  America,  as  senior  captain  of 
the  Fourth  Missouri  Cavalry.  He  was  an  officer 
of  Asboth's  selection,  and  had  many  of  that  vet- 
eran's qualities.  Tall,  thin,  of  elegant  figure,  as 
perfect  a  horseman  as  good  natural  advantages 
and  good  training  could  make,  and  near-sighted, 
as  a  German  cavalry  officer  must  be,  he  was  as 
natty  a  fellow  as  ever  wore  an  eye-glass  and  a 
blond  mustache.  He  was,  at  the  same  time,  a 
man  of  keen  worldly  shrewdness  and  of  quick 
judgment, — qualities  which,  in  his  case,  may 
have  been  sharpened  by  long  practice  at  those 
games  of  chance  with  which  it  has  not  been  unu- 
sual for  European  officers  to  preface  their  coming 


RUBY.  41 

p—         ii    — — — i      m    mmmtmmm  ^i  ...  ■    ■  ■      i  « 

to  draw  their  sabres  in  defence  of  "  die  Freiheit " 
in  America. 

With  Gluckmansklegge  I  had  always  been  on 
friendly  terms.  Among  the  many  lessons  of  his 
life  he  had  learned  none  more  thoroughly  than 
the  best  way  to  treat  his  commanding  officer ; 
and  there  was  in  his  manner  an  air  of  friendly 
deference  and  of  cordial  submission  to  rank, 
accompanied  by  a  degree  of  personal  dignity, 
that  elevated  the  colonel  rather  than  lowered 
the  captain,  —  a  manner  that  probably  makes 
its  way  with  a  newly  fledged  officer  more  surely 
than  any  other  form  of  appeal  to  his  vanity. 
One  sometimes  saw  a  brand-new  second-lieuten- 
ant made  happier  than  a  king  by  this  same 
touch  of  skill  from  an  old  soldier  in  his  com- 
pany, whom  he  knew  to  be  far  his  superior  in 
all  matters  of  service.  To  be  quite  frank,  if  I 
have  an  element  of  snobbishness  in  my  own  or- 
ganization, it  has  been  more  nurtured  into  life 
by  the  military  deference  of  better  soldiers  than 
myself  under  my  command  than  by  all  other 
influences  combined ;   thus  modified  do  the  best 


42  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

of  us  become  in  the  presence  of  unmerited 
praise. 

One  evening  Gluckmansklegge  came  to  my  tent 
door  :  "  Escoose,  Col-o-nel,  may  I  come  1 "  And 
then,  flinging  out  his  eye-glass  with  a  toss  of 
the  head,  he  went  on,  with  his  imperfect  Eng- 
lish, to  tell  me  he  had  just  learned  from  his 
lieutenant  that  I  could  find  no  horse  to  suit 
me ;  that  he  had  a  good  one  strong  enough  for 
my  weight,  and,  he  thought,  even  good  enough 
for  my  needs.  He  had  bought  him  in  St.  Louis 
from  the  quartermaster,  and  would  I  oblige 
him  by  trying  him  1  He  was  quite  at  my  ser- 
vice, at  the  government  price,  for  he,  being 
lighter,  could  easily  replace  him.  Did  I  remem- 
ber his  horse,  —  his  "  Fuchs  "  1  "  He  is  good, 
nice,  strong  horse,  an  he  yoomp  !  —  yei ! !  " 

I  did  remember  his  horse,  and  I  had  seen 
him  "yoomp."  It  had  long  been  a  subject  of 
regret  to  think  that  such  an  animal  should  be 
in  the  regiment,  yet  not  on  my  own  picket-line. 
It  was  well  known  that  great  prices  had  been 
offered   for  him,  only  to  make  Gluckmansklegge 


RUBY.  43 

-  ~  *  ■-.—  —  -  ■  i  .     .  — . .  .,- .  i  ■    .  i .  .  ,i  i  I.  I.,  .  ^ 

fling  his  eye-glass  loose,  and  grin  in  derision. 
"  Fuchs  is  —  how  you  call  1  —  '  heelty,'  an  ge- 
sund ;  wenn  you  like,  your  Ike  will  go  to  my 
company  to  bring  him."  I  did  like,  and  I  had 
no  scruples  against  buying  him  for  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five  dollars.  Ike,  a  handsome  con- 
traband, went  early  the  next  morning  with  a 
halter  for  the  Fuchs,  and  I  was  up  bright  and 
betimes  to  try  him. 

I  had  only  seen  the  horse  before  under  the 
saddle,  perfectly  equipped,  perfectly  bitted,  and 
perfectly  ridden,  an  almost  ideal  charger.  There 
was  a  great  firebrand  scar  on  t.  e  flat  of 
each  shoulder,  where  he  had  been  fired  for  a 
cough,  —  so  said  Gluckmansklegge  ;  —  others  in- 
timated that  this  effaced  a  U.  S.  brand ;  but, 
except  this,  not  a  sign  of  a  blemish.  In  form, 
action,  style,  color  (chestnut),  and  training  he 
was  unexceptionably  good,  and  might  well  ex- 
cite the  envy  of  all  good  horsemen  who  saw  him 
under  the  saddle.  Knowing  him  so  well?  I  went 
rather  eagerly  to  the  picket-line  to  refresh  my- 
self with  the  added  sensation  that  the  actual 
ownership  of  such  a  horse  must  give. 


44  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

There  stood  the  new  purchase,  —  a  picture  of 
the  most  abject  misery ;  his  hind  legs  drawn 
under  him ;  the  immense  muscles  of  his  hips 
lying  flabby,  like  a  cart-horse's ;  his  head  hang- 
ing to  the  level  of  his  knees,  and  his  under-lip 
drooping ;  his  eyes  half  shut,  and  his  long  ears 
falling  out  sidewise  like  a  sleepy  mule's.  I  had 
bought  him  for  a  safe  price,  and  he  would  prob- 
ably do  to  cany  Ike  and  the  saddle-bags ;  but 
I  felt  as  far  as  ever  from  a  mount  for  myself, 
and  went  back  to  my  tent  wiser  and  no  hap- 
pier than  before. 

Presently  Ike  appeared  with  the  coffee,  and 
asked  how  I  liked  the  new  horse. 

"Not  at  all." 

"Don't  ye?  well  now,  I  reckon  he  's  a  consid'- 
able  of  a  boss." 

I  sent  him  to  look  at  him  again,  and  he  came 
back  with  a  very  thoughtful  air,  —  evidently  he 
had  been  impressed.  At  last  he  said,  "  Well  now, 
Colonel,  I  don't  reckon  you  bought  that  hoss  to 
look  at  him  on  the  picket-line,  did  ye?" 

"No,    Ike,    or   he    should    be    sold    out   very 


RUBY.  45 

cheap ;  but  he  is  not  the  kind  of  horse  I  sup- 
posed he  was;  he  ought  to  work  in  a  mule- 
team." 

"  Well  now,  Colonel,  mebbe  he  is ;  but  you 
can't  never  tell  nothin'  about  a  hoss  till  you 
get  him  between  ye ;  and  I  reckon  he  's  a  con- 
sid'able  of  a  hoss,  I  reckon  he  is." 

Ike  was  wise,  in  his  way,  and  his  way  was  a 
very  horsy  one,  —  so  my  hopes  revived  a  little ; 
and  when  Gluckmansklegge  came  up  on  a  capi- 
tal little  beast  he  had  been  handling  (secretly 
to  replace  the  Fuchs),  I  had  the  new  venture 
saddled  and  brought  round.  He  came  blunder- 
ing along,  head  and  ears  and  tail  down,  and 
stood  like  a  leathern  horse  for  me  to  mount, 
Gluckmansklegge  dropping  his  eye-glass  and  grin- 
ning. It  was  as  well  to  find  out  first  as  last 
whether  he  had  anything  in  him  or  not,  and  I 
gathered  up  the  curb-rein,  which  brought  his 
head  into  superb  position  and  settled  him  well 
back  upon  his  haunches ;  but,  as  the  movement 
had  been  made  with  dignity,  I  gave  him  both 
heels,    firmly,  —  when   we   went    sailing  !  —  how 


46  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


high  I  don't  know,  probably  not  fifteen  feet,  but 
it  seemed  that,  and  covering  a  good  stretch  to 
the  front.  It  was  the  most  enormous  lift  I  had 
ever  had,  and  (after  an  appreciable  time  in  the 
air),  when  he  landed  square  on  all  four  feet,  it 
was  to  strike  a  spanking,  even  trot,  the  bit  play- 
ing loose  in  his  mouth,  his  head  swaying  easily 
with  his  step,  and  his  tail  flying.  I  had  never 
been  more  amazed  in  my  life  than  by  the  won- 
derful grace  and  agility  of  this  splendid  brute. 
As  he  trotted  along  with  his  high,  strong,  and 
perfectly  cadenced  step,  he  showed  in  the  swing 
of  his  head  all  the  satisfaction  of  an  athlete  turn- 
ing, conscious,  lightly  away  from  the  footlights, 
after  his  especial  tour  de  force. 

As  Gluckmansklegge  rode  up,  he  said,  "Well, 
Col-o-nel,  how  you  like  1  Nice  pretty  strong 
horse,  what?" 

And  then,  his  English  failing  him,  he  fell, 
through  an  attempt  at  French,  into  German,  in 
which  his  tongue  was  far  more  ready  than  my 
ear.  Still  it  was  easy  to  gather  enough  to  un- 
derstand   some    of  the    processes  by  which  the 


47 
RUBY. 


animal's  natural  qualifications  for  his  work  had 
been  developed  into  such  unusual  accomplish- 
ments ;  and  then  he  glided  into  the  compliment- 
ary assertion  that  no  one  but  the  colonel  of  his 
regiment  could  ever  have  hoped  to  buy  him  at 
any  price,  —  and  of  course  he  did  not  consider  it 
a  sale.  His  original  outlay,  which  he  could  not 
afford  to  lose,  had  been  reimbursed ;  but  the 
true  value  of  the  horse,  his  education,  he  was 
only  too  glad  to  give  me.  And  then,  the  pleas- 
ure of  seeing  his  colonel  suitably  mounted,  and 
the  satisfaction  of  seeing  the  horse  properly  rid- 
den, really  threw  the  obligation  on  his  side. 
Then,  with  his  inimitable  naivete,  he  not  only 
expressed,  but  demonstrated,  in  every  look  and 
gesture,  more  delight  in  watching  our  move- 
ments than  he  had  felt  in  his  own  riding. 
"  Praise  a  horseman  for  his  horsemanship,  and 
he  will  ride  to  the  Devil."  Gluckmansklegge  (I 
did  not  suspect  him  of  a  desire  for  promotion) 
pointed  to  a  strong  rail-fence  near  by,  -and  sug- 
gested that  the  combination  of  man  and  horse 
for  that  sort  of  thing  was  unusual.     Whether  it 


48  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

was  a  banter  or  a  compliment,  it  would  have 
been  impossible  for  any  man  who  properly  es- 
teemed himself  and  his  riding  to  stop  to  con- 
sider. Turned  toward  the  fence,  the  Fuchs, 
checking  his  speed,  seemed  to  creep  toward  it, 
as  a  cat  would,  making  it  very  uncertain  what 
he  proposed;  but  as  he  came  nearer  to  it,  that 
willingness  to  leap  that  an  accustomed  rider  will 
always  recognize  communicated  itself  to  me,  and, 
with  perfect  judgment,  but  with  a  force  and 
spirit  I  had  never  hoped  to  meet  in  a  horse  of 
this  world,  he  carried  me  over  the  enormous 
height,  and  landed  like  a  deer,  among  the  stumps 
and  brush  on  the  other  side,  and  trotted  gayly 
away,  athlete-like  again,  happier  and  prouder 
than  ever  horse  was  before. 

Sitting  that  evening  at  my  tent  door,  opposite 
the  spring,  bragging,  as  the  custom  is,  over  the 
new  purchase,  it  occurred  to  me  that  that  stream  of 
water  and  that  bit  of  horse-flesh  had  some  quali- 
ties alike ;  so  I  christened  the  latter  "  Roubie 
d'Eaux,"  which  was  soon  translated  and  short- 
ened to  "Kuby," —  a  name  henceforth  familiar 
throughout  the  regiment. 


RUBY.  49 

To  become  my  property  was  the  only  thing 
needed  to  make  him  perfect,  for  Ike  was  born 
in  a  racing  stud  in  Kentucky,  and  had  practised 
all  the  arts  of  the  craft,  up  to  the  time  wheD,  be- 
ing both  jockey  and  "  the  stakes "  in  a  race  he 
rode,  he  was  lost  to  a  Missouri  gentleman  of  for- 
tune, and  became  a  body-servant.  He  was  once 
confidential :  — 

"Well,  now,  Colonel,  you  see,  this  is  how  it 
was:  I  hadn't  nothin'  ag'in  my  master,  —  he 
was  a  right  nice  man ;  but  then,  you  see,  he 
drinked,  and  I  didn't  know  what  might  become 
of  me  some  time.  Then,  you  see,  I  knowed  this 
man  was  stiddy,  an'  he  'd  jess  done  bought  a 
yallar  gal  I  kinder  had  a  notion  for,  an'  so,  — 
don't  ye  see  why?  —  well,  the  hoss  could  have 
won  the  race  fast  enough,  but  then,  you  see,  my 
master,  —  well,  he  was  a  drinkin'  kind  of  a  man, 
an'  I  thought  I  might  as  well  fix  it.  I  knowed 
I  was  up  for  stakes,  an'  that's  how  I  come  to 
Missouri ;  I  ain't  no  Missouri  man  born,  but  that 's 
how  it  was." 

He  had  become  a  good  body-servant  without 
3  D 


50  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

forgetting  his  stable  training,  and  his  horses  bore 
testimony  to  his  skill  and  fidelity.  After  going 
through  the  routine  of  a  well-regulated  stable, 
he  gave  each  horse  a  half-hour's  stroking  with 
the  flat  of  his  hands,  brisk  and  invigorating ;  and 
the  result  was  a  more  blooming  condition  and 
more  vigorous  health  than  is  often  seen  in  horses 
on  a  campaign.  The  best  substitute  that  could 
be  secured  for  a  stable  was  a  very  heavy  canvas 
blanket,  covering  the  horse  from  his  ears  to  his 
tail  and  down  to  his  knees,  water-proof  and  wind- 
proof.  It  was  a  standing  entertainment  with  the 
less  dignified  members  of  the  mess  to  invite  at- 
tention to  Ruby  as  he  stood  moping  under  this 
hideous  housing.  Certainly  I  never  saw  him  thus 
without  thinking  that  his  time  had  at  last  come, 
and  that  he  surely  would  never  again  be  able  to 
carry  me  creditably.  Yet,  as  Ike's  devotion  con- 
tinued, he  grew  better  and  better,  commanding 
daily  more  of  the  respect  and  admiration  of  all 
who  knew  him,  and  attaching  himself  to  me  more 
and  more  as  we  learned  each  other's  wavs. 

One  never  loves  but  one   horse  entirely,  and 


RUBY.  51 

so  Ruby  never  quite  filled  Vixen's  place ;  but 
as  a  serviceable  friend,  he  was  all  that  could  be 
desired.  The  unsupplied  want  of  my  life,  that 
had  made  me  restless  and  discontented,  was  now 
satisfied,  and  my  duties  became  easy,  and  my 
pastimes  (the  principal  times  of  South  Missouri 
warfare)  entirely  agreeable. 

It  was  no  slight  addition  to  these  sources  of 
contentment  to  feel  that  the  command  had  at  last 
awakened  to  a  sense  of  its  dereliction,  and  was 
fast  reforming  its  ways.  I  had  hardly  owned 
Ruby  for  a  fortnight  before  the  old  cheerfulness 
and  alacrity  returned  to  the  regiment,  and  by  the 
time  we  broke  up  our  camp  on  the  Roubie  d'Eaux 
and  went  over  to  Lebanon  for  the  shooting  sea- 
son, the  entire  organization  was  in  a  most  satis- 
factory condition. 

Our  life  in  Lebanon  was  an  episode  of  the  war 
that  we  shall  not  soon  forget.  To  the  best  of  my 
knowledge  and  belief,  after  Price  had  retreated 
from  Pea  Ridge,  the  only  organized  forces  of  armed 
Rebels  to  be  found  north  of  the  White  River  were 
local  bands  of  jay-hawkers,  whose  rebellion  was 


52  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

mainly  directed  against  the  laws  of  property,  and 
the  actuating  motive  of  whose  military  movements 
was  "  nags."  The  stealing  of  horses,  with  the 
consequent  application  of  Lynch  law,  was  all  that 
the  native  male  population  had  to  keep  them 
out  of  mischief,  for  weeks  and  weeks  together. 
There  was  just  enough  of  this  sort  of  armed 
lawlessness  to  furnish  us  with  a  semblance  of 
duty ;  not  enough  seriously  to  interrupt  our  more 
regular  avocations. 

Lebanon  is  on  the  high  table-land  of  the 
Ozarks,  in  the  heart  of  a  country  flowing  with 
prairie-hens  and  wild  turkeys,  and  bountifully 
productive  of  the  more  humdrum  necessaries 
of  life.  Thanks  to  the  fleeing  of  Rebel  fam- 
ilies, we  found  comfortable  quarters  without  too 
severely  oppressing  those  who  had  remained. 
What  with  moving  the  court-house  away  from 
the  public  square,  leaving  the  space  free  for  a 
parade,  and  substituting  a  garrison  flag-staff  for 
the  town  pump,  we  kept  our  men  from  rust- 
ing; and  when,  after  a  time,  we  had  established 
a   comfortable    post-hospital    and   a   commodious 


RUBY.  53 

military  prison,  Lebanon  was  as  complete  and 
well-ordered  a  station  as  could  be  found  in  South 
Missouri.  I  had  the  questionable  honor  and  the 
unquestionable  comfort  of  holding  its  command 
from  the  end  of  January  to  the  end  of  April,  — 
three  dreamy  months,  that  seem  now  to  have 
been  passed  in  a  shooting-lodge,  under  favorable 
auspices. 

As  a  legacy  of  the  "Hundred  Days,"  when 
the  "  Fourth  Missouri "  was  the  "  Fremont  Hus- 
sars," we  had  an  able-bodied  and  extremely  well- 
selected  regimental  band,  that  soothed  our  over- 
tasked senses  when  we  came  in  from  our  work 
in  the  fields,  gathering  where  our  enemies  had 
sown,  and  (under  the  suspended  game-laws  of 
the  State)  shooting  grouse  and  quail  in  the  early 
spring. 

Naturally,  most  of  my  official  duties  were  such 
as  could  be  performed  by  an  extremely  well-reg- 
ulated adjutant ;  and  I  usually  passed  his  busy 
half-hour  (in  private)  with  Ruby.  There  had 
been  an  impetuosity  about  the  horse  at  the  out- 
set which   it  was  desirable  to  quell,  and  I  rode 


54  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

him  regularly  in  a  nicely  fenced  kitchen-garden, 
where,  after  he  learned  that  fences  are  not  always 
intended  for  leaping-bars,  he  fell  slowly  into  the 
routine  of  the  training-school,  and  easily  acquired 
a  perfect  self-command  and  aplomb  that  enabled 
him,  under  all  circumstances,  to  await  his  rider's 
instructions. 

I  wish  that  les3  account  had  been  made,  in  the 
writings  of  those  whose  horse-stories  have  pre- 
ceded mine,  of  the  specified  feats  of  their  ani- 
mals. The  role  of  a  horse's  performances  is 
necessarily  limited,  and  it  is  probably  impossible 
for  a  well-constituted  mind  to  recite  the  simple 
story  of  his  deeds  without  seeming  to  draw 
largely  on  the  imagination.  Consequently,  an 
unexaggerated  account  of  what  Ruby  actually 
did  (and  I  cannot  bring  my  mind  to  an  embel- 
lishment of  the  truth)  would  hardly  interest  a 
public  whose  fancy  has  been  thus  pampered  and 
spoiled.  But  for  this,  these  pages  could  be  filled 
with  instances  of  his  strength  and  agility  that 
would  almost  tax  belief.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
while,  like  most  good  high  leapers,  he  would  cover 


RUBY.  55 

but  a  moderate  breadth  of  water,  he  would  get 
over  anything  reasonable  in  the  shape  of  a  fence 
that  could  be  found  about  the  town. 

I  was  a  heavy  weight,  —  riding  nearly  two  hun- 
dred pounds,  —  and  necessarily  rode  with  judg- 
ment. If  there  was  a  low  place  in  a  fence,  we 
never  chose  a  high  one;  but,  at  the  same  time, 
if  there  were  no  low  places,  we  took  the  best  we 
could  find.  Ruby  seemed  to  know  that  the  two 
of  us  were  solid  enough  to  break  through  any 
ordinary  pile  of  rails,  and  what  we  could  not  jump 
over  we  jumped  at.  More  than  once  did  he  carry 
away  the  top  rail  of  a  snake  fence  with  his  knees, 
and  land  fair  and  square  on  the  other  side ;  but 
it  was  a  very  high  leap  that  made  this  necessary. 

He  would  jump  on  to  the  porch  of  the  quarter- 
master's office  (approached  from  the  ground  by 
four  steps),  and  then  jump  over  the  hand-rail  and 
land  on  the  ground  below  again,  almost  wagging 
his  tail  with  delight  at  the  feat. 

His  ear  was  quicker  than  mine  for  the  peeping 
of  quail  and  for  the  drumming  of  grouse,  and, 
in  the  absence  of  a  good  dog,  there  is  no  doubt 


56  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

that  my  pot  (for  which  alone  I  have  been  said  to 
hunt)  was  better  filled  by  reason  of  his  intelli- 
gence in  the  field,  and  because  he  would  allow 
one  to  shoot  from  the  saddle.  The  birds  never 
mistook  me  for  a  sportsman  until  I  was  quite 
in  among  them,  blazing  away. 

In  coming  home  from  the  prairie,  we  generally 
rode  round  by  the  way  of  a  certain  sunken  garden 
that  stood  a  couple  of  feet  below  the  level  of  the 
road.  A  five-foot  picket-fence  that  stood  at  the 
roadside  had  fallen  over  toward  the  garden,  so 
that  its  top  was  hardly  four  feet  higher  than  the 
road.  This  made  the  most  satisfactory  leap  we 
ever  took,  —  the  long,  sailing  descent,  and  the 
safe  landing  on  sandy  loam,  satisfied  so  com- 
pletely one's  prudent  love  of  danger. 

I  think  I  missed  this  leap  more  than  anything 
at  Lebanon  when,  finally,  we  set  out  for  Arkansas. 

We  made  our  first  considerable  halt  early  in 
May,  at  Batesville,  on  the  White  River,  —  a  lovely, 
rose-grown  village,  carrying,  in  the  neatly  kept 
home  of  its  New  England  secessionists,  evidence 
that  they  remembered  their  native  land,  where,  in 


RUBY.  57 

their  day,  before  the  age  of  railroads,  the  "  vil- 
lage "  flourished  in  all  its  freshness  and  simplicity. 
It  had  now  acquired  the  picturesque  dilapidation, 
in  the  manner  of  fences  and  gates  and  defective 
window-panes,  that  marked  the  Southern  domicile 
during  the  war.  Ruby  had  strained  himself  quite 
seriously  during  the  march,  and  had  been  left  to 
come  on  slowly  with  the  quartermaster's  train. 
This  left  me  quite  free  for  the  social  life,  such 
as  it  was,  to  which  we  —  the  only  available  men 
that  had  been  seen  there  since  Price  gathered  his 
forces  at  Springfield  —  were  welcomed  with  a 
reserved  cordiality.  Our  facilities  for  forming 
a  correct  opinion  of  society  were  not  especially 
good,  but  I  fancied  I  should  have  passed  my  time 
to  as  good  advantage  in  the  saddle. 

We  soon  left  for  an  active  expedition  in  the  di- 
rection of  Little  Rock,  of  which  it  is  only  neces- 
sary to  say,  here,  that  it  lasted  about  a  month, 
and  brought  the  writer  acquainted  with  some  very 
unsatisfactory  horses,  —  a  fact  which  heightened 
his  pleasure,  on  striking  the  White  River  bottom 
again,  at  finding  that   Ruby  had  been  brought 


58  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

over  the  ferry  to  meet  him.  Tired  as  I  was,  I 
+ook  a  glorious  brisk  trot  through  the  Canebrake 
Road,  with  a  couple  of  leaps  over  fallen  trees, 
that  revived  the  old  emotions  and  made  a  man 
of  me  again. 

While  we  lay  at  Batesville  we  were  unusu- 
ally active  in  the  matter  of  drill  and  reor- 
ganization ;  and  this,  with  our  engagements  in 
the  town,  kept  us  too  busy  for  much  recrea- 
tion ;  but  Ludlow  and  I  managed  to  work  in  a 
daily  swim  in  the  White  River,  with  old  saddles 
on  our  horses,  and  scant  clothing  on  our  per- 
sons. Talk  of  aquatic  sports  !  there  is  no  loyal 
bath  without  a  plucky  horse  to  assist ;  and  a 
swim  across  the  swift  current  at  Batesville,  with 
a  horse  like  Ruby  snorting  and  straining  at  every 
stroke,  belittled  even  the  leaping  at  Lebanon. 

From  Batesville  we  commenced  our  memora- 
ble march  to  join  the  fleet  that  had  just  passed 
Memphis,  following  down  the  left  bank  of  the 
river  to  Augusta,  and  then  striking  across  the 
cotton  country  to  Helena,  —  a  march  on  which  we 
enjoyed  the  rarest  picturesqueness  of  plantation 


RUBY.  59 

life,  and  suffered  enough  from  heat  and  hunger 
and  thirst,  and  stifling,  golden  dust  to  more 
than  pay  for  it. 

Helena  was  a  pestiferous  swamp,  worth  more 
than  an  active  campaign  to  our  enemies,  filling 
our  hospitals,  and  furrowing  the  levee  bank  with 
graves.  It  was  too  hot  for  much  drilling,  and 
we  kept  our  better  horses  in  order  by  daybreak 
races.  With  the  local  fever  feeling  its  way  into 
my  veins,  I  was  too  listless  to  care  much  for 
any  diversion ;  but  Ike  came  to  me  one  evening 
to  say  that  he  "  reckoned "  Ruby  was  as  good 
a  horse  as  anybody  had  in  the  "  camps,"  and 
he  might  as  well  take  a  hand  in  the  games.  I 
told  him  I  had  no  objection  to  his  being  run, 
if  he  could  find  a  suitable  boy,  but  that  both 
he  and  I  were  too  heavy  for  race-riding. 

"  I  don't  weigh  only  about  a  hundred  and  a 
half,"  said  the  ambitious  man. 

"Well,  suppose  you  don't,  that  is  ten  pounds 
too  much." 

"  I  reckon  a  man  can  ride  ten  pound  lighter 
'n  he  is  if  he   knows  how  to  ride ;   anyhow,  if 


60  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

Rube  can't  skiu  anything   around   here,  I  don't 
know  nothin'  about  horses." 

"Ike,  did  you  ever  run  that  horse  1" 

"Well,  Colonel,  now  you  ask  me,  I  did  jest 
give  Dwight's  darkey  a  little  brush  once." 

Conquering  my  indignation  and  my  scruples, 
I  went  over,  just  for  the  honor  of  the  establish- 
ment, and  made  up  a  race  for  the  next  day. 

I  have  seen  crack  race-horses  in  my  time,  but 
I  never  saw  more  artistic  riding  nor  more  capi- 
tal running  than  that  summer  morning  on  the 
River  Road  at  Helena,  just  as  the  sun  began  to 
gild  the  muddy  Mississippi.  The  satisfaction  of 
this  conquest,  and  the  activity  with  which  new 
engagements  were  offered  by  ambitious  lieuten- 
ants, who  little  knew  the  stuff  my  man  and 
horse  were  made  of,  kept  off  my  fever  for  some 
weeks ;  but  I  steadily  declined  all  opportunity 
of  racing  with  horses  outside  of  our  command, 
for  I  had  been  reared  in  a  school  of  Puritan 
severity,  and  had  never  quite  overcome  my  con- 
victions against  the  public  turf.  A  corporal  of 
an  "  Injeanny  regement "  took   occasion   to  crow 


RUBY.  61 

lustily  —  so  I  heard  —  because  "  one  of  them 
French  coveys  "  was  afraid  to  run  him  a  quar- 
ter for  five  dollars.  It  appeared  that  a  cleanly 
European  was  always  supposed  by  this  gentry 
to  be  French ;  and  in  the  army  at  large  I  was 
better  known  by  the  company  I  kept  than  by 
my  New  England  characteristics. 

Naturally,  Ike  thought  that,  while  Ruby  was 
engaged  in  this  more  legitimate  occupation,  he 
ought  not  to  be  ridden  for  mere  pleasure ;  and  it 
was  only  when  a  visitor  was  to  be  entertained, 
or  when  I  went  out  on  plea  of  duty,  that  I 
could  steal  an  opportunity  to  leap  him ;  but  he 
took  one  fence  that  fairly  did  him  credit.  It 
was  a  snake  fence  measuring  four  feet  and  two 
inches,  with  a  deep  ditch  on  each  side  cut  close 
to  the  projecting  angles  of  the  rails.  Ruby  car- 
ried me  over  the  first  ditch  into  the  angle  be- 
tween the  rails,  then  over  the  fence  into  the 
narrow  space  on  the  other  side,  and  then  over 
the  second  ditch  into  the  field.  It  was  the  most 
perfect  combination  of  skill,  strength,  and  judg- 
ment that  was  possible  to  horse-flesh ;  and  I  think 


62  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

Gluckmansklegge,  who  was  with  me  and  had  sug- 
gested the  venture,  despaired  of  ever  getting  his 
promotion  by  any  fair  means,  when  we  rejoined 
him  by  the  return  leap  and  rode  safely  to  camp. 

Unhappily,  even  entire  satisfaction  with  one's 
horse  is  powerless  to  ward  off  such  malaria  as 
that  of  the  camp  at  Helena,  and  in  due  time 
I  fell  ill  with  the  fever.  The  horse  was  turned 
over  to  the  care  of  the  quartermaster,  and  Ike 
and  I  came  wearily  home  on  sick-leave. 

Late  in  the  autumn  we  returned  to  St.  Louis, 
where  one  of  the  German  officers  told  me  that 
the  regiment  had  joined  Davidson's  army  at  "  Pi- 
lot K-nopp  "  ;  and  after  the  Hun,  our  new  ad- 
jutant, arrived  from  the  East,  we  set  out  for 
headquarters,  and  took  command  of  the  cavalry 
brigade  of  Davidson's  army. 

From  November  until  January  we  were  tossed 
about  from  post  to  post,  wearing  out  our  horses, 
wearying  our  men,  and  accomplishing  absolutely 
nothing  of  value  beyond  the  destruction  of  an 
enormous  amount  of  the  rough  forage,  which 
would  otherwise  have  been  used  to  feed  "  nags," 


RUBY.  63 

—  stolen  or  to  be  stolen,  —  and  would  have  thus 
tended  to  foster  the  prevailing  vice  of  the  region. 

At  last  we  settled  down  in  a  pleasant  camp  at 
Thomasville,  —  a  good  twelve  miles  away  from 
Davidson,  —  and  were  at  rest ;  it  was  only  those 
near  him  who  suffered  from  his  fitful  caprices, 
and  he  was  now  encamped  with  the  infantry. 

Pleasant  as  we  found  it  with  our  little  duty 
and  much  sport,  I  can  never  look  back  to  Thom- 
asville without  sorrow.  To  say  that  I  had  ac- 
quired a  tenderness  for  Ruby  would  not  be 
strictly  just;  but  I  felt  for  him  all  the  respect 
and  admiration  and  fondness  that  is  possible  short 
of  love.  Vix  had  been  my  heroine,  and  my  only 
one ;  but  Ruby  was  my  hero,  and  I  depended  on 
him  for  my  duty  and  my  pleasure  more  than  I 
knew.  With  his  full  measure  of  intelligence  he 
had  learned  exactly  his  role,  and  he  was  always 
eager,  whenever  occasion  offered,  to  show  the  world 
what  a  remarkably  fine  horse  I  had,  —  being  him- 
self conscious,  not  only  of  his  unusual  virtues, 
but,  no  less,  of  the  praise  they  elicited. 

One  sunny  Southern  day,  toward  the  end  of 


04  WHIP  AND  SPUE. 

January,  Davidson  had  ridden  over,  with  his  fol- 
lowing, to  dine  with  us ;  and  as  we  were  sitting 
before  our  mess-tent,  mellow  with  after-dinner 
talk  of  our  guns  and  our  dogs  and  our  horses, 
the  General  was  good  enough  to  remember  that 
he  had  seen  me  riding  a  chestnut  that  he  thought 
much  too  finely  bred  for  field  work  :  had  I  been 
able  to  keep  him?  Then  Ruby  was  discussed, 
and  all  his  successes  were  recalled,  first  by  one 
friend  and  then  by  another,  until  Davidson  needed 
ocular  proof  of  our  truthfulness. 

Ike  had  taken  the  hint,  and  brought  Ruby 
round  in  due  time,  —  glistening  like  gold  in  the 
slanting  rays  of  the  setting  sun,  but  blundering 
along  with  his  head  down  and  ears  drooping  in 
his  old,  dismal  way. 

"  0  no,  I  don't  mean  that  horse,"  said  David- 
son ;  "  I  mean  a  very  high-strung  horse  I  have 
seen  you  ride  on  the  march." 

"Very  well,  General,  that  is  the  animal;  he 
keeps  his  strings  loose  when  he  is  not  at  his 
work." 

"  No,  I  have  seen  you  riding  a  far  better  horse 


RUBY.  65 

than  that;  I  am  too  old  a  cavalryman  to  be 
caught  by  such  chaff." 

To  the  great  glee  of  the  Hun,  whose  faith  in 
Ruby  was  unbounded,  Davidson's  whole  staff 
turned  the  laugh  on  me  for  trying  to  deceive 
the  General  just  because  he  had  been  dining. 

I  mounted,  and  started  off  with  one  of  Ruby's 
enormous  lifts,  that  brought  the  whole  company 
to  their  feet.  It  was  the  supreme  moment  with 
him.  Full  of  consciousness,  as  though  he  knew 
the  opportunity  would  never  come  again,  and 
quivering  in  anticipation  of  his  triumph,  he  was 
yet  true  to  his  training,  and  held  himself  subject 
to  my  least  impulse. 

We  had  lain  in  our  camp  for  more  than  a  week, 
and  there  was  not  a  vestige  left  of  the  recently 
substantial  fences,  —  only  the  suggestive  and  con- 
spicuous gateways  that  stood  to  mark  the  march 
of  our  armies  from  the  Chesapeake  to  the  Indian 
Nation.  But  Ruby  built  fences  in  his  imagina- 
tion higher  than  any  he  had  ever  faced,  and 
cleared  them  without  a  scratch,  landing  close  as 
though  the  Helena  ditch  were  still  to  be  taken. 


66 


WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


It  would  take  long  to  tell  all  he  did  and  how 
perfectly  he  did  it ;  he  went  back  at  last  to  his 
canvas  blanket,  loaded  with  adulation,  and  as 
happy  as  it  is  given  a  horse  to  be. 

In  his  leaping  he  had  started  a  shoe,  and  Ike 
took  him  in  the  morning  to  the  smith  (who  had 
taken  possession  of  an  actual  forge),  to  have  it 
reset.  A  moment  later,  the  Hun  cried,  "My 
God,  Colonel,  look  at  Ruby !  " 

Hobbling  along  with  one  hind  foot  drawn  up 
with  pain,  he  was  making  his  last  mournful 
march,  and  we  laid  him  that  day  to  rest,  —  as  true 
a  friend  and  as  faithful  a  fellow  as  ever  wore  a 
chestnut  coat. 

He  had  reared  in  the  shop,  parted  his  halter, 
and  fallen  under  a  bench,  breaking  his  thigh  far 
up  above  the  stifle. 


WETTSTEIN. 


T  is  a  pleasant  thing  to  be  a  colonel  of 
cavalry  in  active  field-service.  There 
are  circumstances  of  authority  and  re- 
sponsibility that  fan  the  latent  spark  of  barbarism 
which,  however  dull,  glows  in  all  our  breasts,  and 
which  generations  of  republican  civilization  have 
been  powerless  to  quench.  We  may  not  have  con- 
fessed it  even  to  ourselves ;  but  on  looking  back 
to  the  years  of  the  war,  we  must  recognize  many 
things  that  patted  our  vanity  greatly  on  the  back, 
—  things  so  different  from  all  the  dull  routine  of 
equality  and  fraternity  of  home,  that  those  four 
years  seem  to  belong  to  a  dream-land,  over  which 
the  haze  of  the  life  before  them  and  of  the  life 
after  them  draws  a  misty  veil.  Equality  and  Fra- 
ternity !  a  pretty  sentiment,  yes,  and  full  of  sen- 


68  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

sible  and  kindly  regard  for  all  mankind,  and  full 
of  hope  for  the  men  who  are  to  come  after  us ; 
but  Superiority  and  Fraternity  !  who  shall  tell  all 
the  secret  emotions  this  implies  1  To  be  the  head 
of  the  brotherhood,  with  the  unremitted  clank 
of  a  guard's  empty  scabbard  trailing  before  one's 
tent-door  day  and  night ;  with  the  standard  of  the 
regiment  proclaiming  the  house  of  chief  author- 
ity ;  with  the  respectful  salute  of  all  passers,  and 
the  natural  obedience  of  all  members  of  the  com- 
mand ;  with  the  shade  of  deference  that  even 
comrades  show  to  superior  rank ;  and  with  that 
just  sufficient  check  upon  coarseness  during  the 
jovial  bouts  of  the  headquarters'  mess,  making 
them  not  less  genial,  but  void  of  all  offence,  — 
living  in  this  atmosphere,  one  almost  feels  the 
breath  of  feudal  days  coming  modified  through 
the  long  tempestuous  ages  to  touch  his  cheek, 
whispering  to  him  that  the  savage  instinct  of  the 
sires  has  not  been,  and  never  will  be,  quite  civil- 
ized out  of  the  sons.  And  then  the  thousand 
men,  and  the  yearly  million  that  they  cost,  while 
they  fill   the  cup  of  the  colonel's  responsibility 


WETTSTEIN.  69 


(sometimes  to  overflowing),  and  give  him  many- 
heavy  trials,  —  they  are  his  own  men ;  their  use- 
fulness is  almost  of  his  own  creation,  and  their 
renown  is  his  highest  glory. 

I  may  not  depict  the  feelings  of  others ;  but 
I  find  in  the  recollection  of  my  own  service  —  as 
succeeding  years  dull  its  details  and  cast  the 
nimbus  of  distance  about  it  —  the  source  of  emo- 
tions which  differ  widely  from  those  to  which  our 
modern  life  has  schooled  us. 

One  of  the  colonel's  constant  attendants  is  the 
chief  bugler,  or,  as  he  is  called  in  hussar  Dutch, 
the  "  Stabstrompaytr  "  ;  mine  was  the  prince  of 
Trompaytrs,  and  his  name  was  Wettstein.  He 
was  a  Swiss,  whose  native  language  was  a  mixture 
of  guttural  French  and  mincing  German.  Eng- 
lish was  an  impossible  field  to  him.  He  had 
learned  to  say  "  yes  "  and  "  matches  " ;  but  not 
one  other  of  our  words  could  he  ever  lay  his 
tongue  to,  except  the  universal  "damn."  But 
for  his  bugle  and  his  little  gray  mare,  I  should 
never  have  had  occasion  to  know  his  worth.  Mu- 
sic filled  every  pore  of  his  Alpine  soul,  and  his 


70  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

wonderful  Swiss  "Retreat"  must  ring  to  this  day 
in  the  memory  of  every  man  of  the  regiment 
whose  thoughts  turn  again  to  the  romantic  cam- 
paign of  South  Missouri.  What  with  other  bu- 
glers was  a  matter  of  routine  training  was  with 
him  an  inspiration.  All  knew  well  enough  the 
meaning  of  the  commands  that  the  company 
trumpets  stammered  or  blared  forth;  but  when 
they  rang  from  "VVettstein's  horn,  they  earned 
with  them  a  vim  and  energy  that  secured  their 
prompt  execution ;  and  his  note  in  the  wild  Ozark 
Hills  would  mark  the  headquarters  of  the  "  Vierte 
Missouri "  for  miles  around.  From  a  hill-top,  half 
a  mile  in  advance  of  the  marching  command,  I 
have  turned  the  regiment  into  its  camping-ground 
and  dismounted  it  in  perfect  order  by  the  melo- 
dious telegraphy  of  Wettstein's  brazen  lips  alone. 
That  other  chief  attribute  of  his,  Klitschka, 
his  little  beast,  stayed  longer  with  me  than  his 
bugle  did,  and  is  hardly  less  identified  with  the 
varied  reminiscences  of  my  army  life.  I  bought 
her,  as  a  prize,  with  the  original  mount  of  the 
regiment,    in    Fremont's    time,   and   was   mildly 


WETTSTEIN.  71 


informed  by  that  officer  that  I  must  be  careful 
how  I  accepted  many  such  animals  from  the  con- 
tractor, though  a  few  for  the  smaller  men  might 
answer.  Asboth,  Fremont's  chief  of  staff,  with 
a  scornful  rolling  up  of  his  cataract  of  a  mus- 
tache, and  a  shrug  of  his  broad,  thin  shoulders, 
said,  "  Whyfor  you  buy  such  horses  ?  What  your 
bugler  ride,  it  is  not  a  horse,  it  is  a  cat."  His 
remark  was  not  intended  as  a  question,  and  it 
ended  the  conversation.  Months  after  that,  he 
eagerly  begged  for  the  nine-lived  Klitschka  for 
one  of  his  orderlies;  being  refused  him,  she  re» 
mained  good  to  the  end.  She  was  an  animal  that 
defied  every  rule  by  which  casual  observers  test 
the  merit  of  a  horse ;  but  analytically  considered 
she  was  nearly  perfect.  Better  legs,  a  better 
body,  and  a  better  head,  it  is  rare  to  see,  than 
she  had.  But  she  lacked  the  arched  neck  and 
the  proud  step  that  she  needed  all  the  more 
because  of  her  small  size.  By  no  means  showy 
in  figure  or  in  action,  it  took  a  second  look  to 
see  her  perfect  fitness  for  her  work.  Her  color 
was  iron-gray,  and  no  iron  could  be  tougher  than 


72  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

she  was  ;  while  her  full,  prominent  eye  and  ample 
brain-room,  and  her  quick  paper-thin  ear,  told  of 
courage  and  intelligence  that  made  her  invaluable 
throughout  four  years  of  hard  and  often  danger- 
ous service.  Like  many  other  ill-favored  little 
people,  she  was  very  lovable,  and  Wettstein  loved 
her  like  a  woman.  He  would  never  hesitate  to 
relax  those  strict  rules  of  conduct  by  which  Ger- 
man cavalrymen  are  supposed  to  govern  them- 
selves, if  it  was  a  question  of  stealing  forage  for 
Klitschka ;  and  he  was  (amiable  fellow !)  never 
so  happy  as  when,  from  a  scanty  supply  in  the 
country,  he  had  taken  enough  oat-sheaves  to  bed 
her  in  and  almost  cover  her  up,  while  other 
horses  of  the  command  must  go  hungry ;  and 
was  never  so  shaken  in  his  regard  for  me  as 
when  I  made  him  give  up  all  but  double  rations 
for  her. 

Double  rations  she  often  earned,  for  Wettstein 
was  a  heavy  youth,  with  a  constitutional  passion 
for  baggage  out  of  all  proportion  to  his  means 
of  transportation.  Mounted  for  the  march,  he 
was  an  odd  sight.     Little  Klitschka's  back,  with 


WETTSTEIN.  73 


his  immense  rolls  of  blankets  and  clothing  before 
and  behind,  looked  like  a  dromedary's.  Planted 
between  the  humps,  straight  as  a  gun-barrel,  the 
brightest  of  bugles  suspended  across  his  back  by- 
its  tasselled  yellow  braid,  slashed  like  a  harlequin 
over  the  breast,  his  arms  chevroned  with  gorgeous 
gold,  —  Wettstein,  with  his  cap-front  turned  up 
so  as  to  let  the  sun  fall  full  on  his  frank  blue  eyes 
and  his  resolute  blond  mustache,  was  the  very 
picture  of  a  cavalry  bugler  in  active  campaign. 

Smoking,  gabbling,  singing,  rollicking,  from 
morning  until  night,  and  still  on  until  morning 
again  if  need  be,  he  never  lost  spirit  nor  temper. 
He  seemed  to  absorb  sunshine  enough  during  the 
day  to  keep  every  one  bright  around  him  all  night. 
When  at  last  his  bugle  had  been  stilled  forever, 
we  long  missed  the  cheer  of  his  indomitable  gay- 
ety ;  wearying  service  became  more  irksome  than 
while  his  bubbling  mirth  had  tempered  its  dul- 
ness ;  and  even  little  Klitschka,  although  she 
remained  an  example  of  steady  pluck,- had  never 
so  potent  an  influence  as  while  he  had  put  his 
own  unfailing  mettle  into  her  heels.  After  she 
4 


74  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


was  bequeathed  to  me,  she  was  always  most 
useful,  but  never  so  gay  and  frisky  as  while  she 
carried  her  own  devoted  groom.  No  day  was  too 
long  for  her  and  no  road  too  heavy ;  her  brisk 
trot  knew  no  failing,  but  she  refused  ever  again 
to  form  the  personal  attachment  that  had  sealed 
her  and  Wettstein  to  each  other. 

The  two  of  them  together,  like  the  fabled  Cen- 
taur, made  the  complete  creature.  He  with  the 
hardened  frame  and  bright  nature  of  his  Alpine 
race,  and  she  with  her  veins  full  of  the  mustang 
blood  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  were  fitted  to  each 
other  as  almost  never  were  horse  and  rider  before. 
Their  performances  were  astonishing.  In  addi- 
tion to  a  constant  attendance  on  his  commander 
(who,  riding  without  baggage,  and  of  no  heavier 
person  than  Wettstein  himself,  sometimes  fagged 
out  three  good  horses  between  one  morning 
and  the  next),  the  Trompaytr  yet  volunteered 
for  all  sorts  of  extra  service,  —  carried  messages 
over  miles  of  bad  road  to  the  general's  camp, 
gave  riding-lessons  and  music-lessons  to  the  com- 
pany buglers,  and  then  —  fear  of  the  guard-house 


WETTSTEIN.  75 


and  fear  of  capture  always  unheeded  —  he  never 
missed  an  opportunity  for  the  most  hazardous  and 
most  laborious  foraging. 

He  was  a  thorough  soldier,  —  always  "for  duty," 
always  cleanly,  always  handsome  and  cheery,  and 
heedlessly  brave.  If  detected  in  a  fault  (and  he 
was,  as  I  have  hinted,  an  incorrigible  forager),  he 
took  his  punishment  like  a  man,  and  stole  milk 
for  himself  or  fodder  for  Klitschka  at  the  next 
convenient  (or  inconvenient)  opportunity,  with  an 
imperturbability  that  no  punishment  could  reach. 

Once,  when  supplies  were  short,  he  sent  me, 
from  the  guard-house  where  he  had  been  confined 
for  getting  them,  a  dozen  bundles  of  corn-blades 
for  my  horses;  not  as  a  bribe,  but  because  he 
would  not  allow  the  incidents  of  discipline  to  dis- 
turb our  friendly  relations ;  and  in  the  matter  of 
fodder  in  scarce  times  he  held  me  as  a  helpless 
pensioner,  dependent  on  his  bounty.  When  in 
arrest  by  my  order,  his  "Pon  chour,  Herr  Ober- 
ist,"  was  as  cordial  and  happy  as  when  iie  strolled 
free  past  my  tent.  Altogether,  I  never  saw  hia 
like  before  or  since.      The   good  fortune  to  get 


76  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

such  a  bugle,  such  a  soldier,  and  such  a  mount 
combined,  comes  but  once  in  the  lifetime  of  the 
luckiest  officer.  It  was  only  his  uncouth  tongue 
that  kept  him  from  being  pilfered  from  me  by 
every  general  who  had  the  power  to  "  detail  " 
him  to  his  own  headquarters. 

So  universal,  by  the  way,  was  this  petty  vice 
of  commanding  officers,  that  one  was  never  safe 
until  he  adopted  the  plan,  in  selecting  a  staff 
officer,  of  securing  his  promise  to  resign  from  the 
service,  point-blank,  if  ordered  to  other  duty,  and 
more  than  one  offended  general  has  been  made 
indignant  by  this  policy.  With  Wettstein,  I  felt 
perfectly  easy,  for  the  average  capacity  of  briga- 
dier-generals stopped  far  short  of  the  analysis  of 
his  dual  jargon.  Several  tried  him  for  a  day, 
but  they  found  that  his  comprehension  was  no 
better  than  his  speech,  and  that  his  manifest 
ability  was  a  sealed  book  to  them.  He  always 
came  home  by  nightfall  with  a  chuckle,  and  "  Le 
general  versteht  mich  nicht.  Je  blase  '  marrrsch ' 
fur  <  halt.' " 

So   it   was    that,  for   a   couple   of  years,  this 


WETTSTEIN.  77 


trusty  fellow  trotted  at  my  heels  through  rain 
and  shine,  by  day  and  by  night,  with  his  face  full 
of  glee,  and  his  well-filled  canteen  at  the  service 
of  our  little  staff.  Mud  and  mire,  ditches  and 
fences,  were  all  one  to  him  and  Klitschka ;  and 
in  Vix's  day  they  followed  her  lead  over  many  a 
spot  that  the  others  had  to  take  by  flank  move- 
ment. 

Our  work  in  Missouri  was  but  little  more  than 
the  work  of  subsistence.  We  were  a  part  of  an 
army  too  large  for  any  Eebel  force  in  that  re- 
gion to  attack,  and  too  unwieldy  to  pursue  gue- 
rillas with  much  effect.  But  now  and  then  we 
made  a  little  scout  that  varied  our  otherwise 
dull  lives ;  and  at  such  times  Wettstein  always 
attached  himself  to  the  most  dangerous  patrol- 
ling party,  and  Klitschka  was  usually  the  first 
to  bring  back  news  of  the  trifling  encounters. 

At  last,  in  February,  1863,  when  we  had  lain 
for  a  month  in  delicious  idleness  in  the  heart  of 
a  rich  country,  literally  flowing  with  poultry  and 
corn-fodder,  I,  being  then  in  command  of  a  divis- 
ion of  cavalry,  received  an  order  from  Davidson 


78  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


to  select  six  hundred  of  the  best-mounted  of  my 
men,  and  to  attack  Marmaduke,  who  was  recruit- 
ing, ninety  miles  away,  at  Batesville  on  the  White 
River  in  Arkansas.  His  main  body,  three  thou- 
sand five  hundred  strong,  lay  in  the  "  Oil-Trough 
Bottom,"  on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  A  bri- 
gade of  Western  infantry  was  to  march  as  far  as 
Salem  (thirty  miles),  and  to  support  us  if  neces- 
sary ;  though  we  afterward  found  that  at  the 
only  moment  when  we  might  have  had  grave 
occasion  to  depend  on  them,  they  were,  with  an 
inconsistency  that  was  not  the  least  attribute  of 
our  commanding  officer,  withdrawn  without  notice 
to  us. 

We  were  to  go  in  light  marching  order,  car- 
rying only  the  necessaiy  clothing,  and  rations 
of  salt  and  coffee.  Wettstein's  ideas  of  lightness 
differing  from  mine,  I  had  to  use  some  authority 
to  rid  poor  Klitschka  of  saucepans,  extra  boots, 
and  such  trash;  and  after  all,  the  rascal  had, 
under  the  plea  of  a  cold,  requiring  extra  blankets, 
smuggled  a  neatly  sewn  sausage  of  corn,  weigh- 
ing  some  fifteen   pounds,  into   one  of  his   rolls. 


WETTSTEIN.  79 


Eager  men,  too,  whose  horses  were  out  of  trim, 
had  to  be  discarded,  and  the  whole  detail  to  be 
thoroughly  overhauled.  But  the  jovial  anticipa- 
tion of  seeing  Batesville  once  more  —  a  New 
England  village  planted  on  a  charming  hillside 
in  Arkansas,  where  we  had  sojourned  with  Cur- 
tis the  summer  before,  and  where  we  all  had  the 
pleasant  acquaintance  that  even  an  enemy  makes 
in  a  town  from  which  the  native  men  have  long 
been  gone,  and  only  the  women  remain  —  made 
the  work  of  preparation  go  smoothly,  and  long 
before  dawn  Wettstein's  bugle  summoned  the  de- 
tails from  the  several  camps.  There  was  a  ring- 
ing joyousness  in  his  call,  that  spoke  of  the  cosey, 
roaring  fire  of  a  certain  Batesville  kitchen  to 
which  his  bright  face  and  his  well-filled  haver- 
sack had  long  ago  made  him  welcome,  and  pro- 
spective feasting  gave  an  added  trill  to  his  blast. 
The  little  detachments  trotted  gayly  into  line, 
officers  were  assigned  for  special  duty,  temporary 
divisions  were  told  off,  and  a  working^  organiza- 
tion was  soon  completed.  Before  the  sun  was 
up,    such   a   Ra,   t't'ta,   t't'ta,   t't'ta  !    as   South 


80  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

Missouri  had  never  heard  before,  broke  the  line 
by  twos  from  the  right,  and  we  were  off  for  a 
promising  trip.  Marmaduke  we  knew  of  old,  and 
personal  cowardice  would  have  deterred  no  one 
from  joining  our  party,  for  he  could  be  reached 
from  our  stronger  army  only  by  a  complete  sur- 
prise ;  and  in  a  country  where  every  woman  and 
child  (white,  I  mean)  was  his  friend  and  our  ene- 
my, a  surprise,  over  ninety  miles  of  bad  roads, 
seemed  out  of  the  question.  Indeed,  before  we 
had  made  a  half  of  the  distance,  one  of  his  flying 
scouts  told  a  negro  woman  by  the  roadside,  as 
he  checked  his  run  to  water  his  horse,  "  There  's 
a  hell's-mint  o'  Yanks  a  comin'  over  the  moun- 
tain, and  I  must  git  to  Marmyjuke " ;  and  to 
Marmaduke  he  "  got,"  half  a  day  ahead  of  us, 
only  to  be  laughed  at  for  a  coward  who  had  been 
frightened  by  a  foraging-party. 

The  second  night  brought  us  to  Evening  Shade, 
a  little  village  where  one  Captain  Smith  was  rais- 
ing a  company.  They  had  all  gone,  hours  ahead 
of  us,  but  had  left  their  supplies  and  their  fires 
behind  them,  and  these,  with  the  aid  of  a  grist- 


WET  T  STEIN.  81 


mill  (for  which  an  Illinois  regiment  furnished  a 
miller),  gave  us  a  bountiful  supper.  At  day- 
break we  set  out  for  our  last  day's  march,  still 
supposing  that  Marmaduke's  men  would  put  the 
river  between  themselves  and  us  before  night, 
but  confident  of  comfortable  quarters  at  Bates- 
ville.  A  few  miles  out,  we  began  to  pick  up 
Rebel  stragglers,  and  Wettstein  soon  came  rat- 
tling through  the  woods,  from  a  house  to  which 
he  had  been  allowed  to  go  for  milk,  with  the 
story  of  a  sick  officer  lodged  there.  Following 
his  lead  with  a  surgeon  and  a  small  escort,  I 
found  the  captain  of  the  Evening  Shade  company 
lying  in  a  raging  fever,  with  which  he  had  found 
it  impossible  to  ride,  and  nearly  dead  with  terror 
lest  we  should  hang  him  at  once.  His  really 
beautiful  young  wife,  who  had  gone  to  enliven 
his  recruiting  labors,  was  in  tears  over  his  im- 
pending fate.  While  we  were  talking  with  him 
concerning  his  parole,  she  bribed  Wettstein  with 
a  royal  pair  of  Mexican  spurs  to  save  his  life, 
evidently  thinking  from  his  display  of  finery  that 
he  was  a  major-general  at  the  very  least.  The 
4*  f 


82 


WHIP  AND  SPUE. 


kind  fellow  buckled  the  spurs  on  my  heels,  and 
they  evidently  gave  me  new  consequence  in  his 
eyes  as  we  rode  on  our  way. 

Presently  we  struck  a  party  of  about  twenty- 
five,  under  a  Captain  Mosby,  who  had  been  mak- 
ing a  circuit  after  conscripts  and  had  had  no 
news  of  us.  After  a  running  fight,  during  which 
there  occurred  some  casualties  on  the  other  side, 
we  captured  the  survivors  of  the  party  and  sent 
them  to  the  rear. 

From  midday  on,  we  heard  rumors  of  a  sally 
in  strong  force  from  Batesville,  and  were  com- 
pelled to  move  cautiously,  —  straggling  parties  of 
Rebel  scouts  serving  to  give  credibility  to  the 
story.  At  sunset  we  were  within  six  miles  of 
the  town;  and,  halting  in  the  deep  snow  of  a 
large  farm-yard,  I  sent  a  picked  party  of  thirty, 
under  Rosa,  to  secure  the  ferry,  if  possible,  — 
Wettstein  and  Klitschka  accompanying  to  bring 
back  word  of  the  result.  After  two  anxious 
hours,  he  came  into  camp  with  a  note  from 
Rosa  :  "  Marmaduke  is  over  the  river  and  has 
the  ferry-boat  with  him ;  three  of  his  men  killed. 


WETTSTEIN.  83 


Wettstein  did  bravely."  The  poor  fellow  had  a 
bad  cut  on  his  arm  and  was  in  pain,  but  not  a 
moment  would  he  give  himself  until  brave  little 
Klitschka,  smothered  in  bright  straw,  was  filling 
herself  from  the  smuggled  bag  of  corn.  Then 
he  came  to  the  surgeon  and  had  his  wounded 
arm  duly  dressed.  Although  evidently  suffering 
and  weak  from  loss  of  blood,  he  gave  us  a  cheer- 
ing account  of  Rosa's  fight,  and  dwelt  fondly  on 
the  supper  he  had  bespoken  for  us  at  good  Mrs. 

's  house,  where   we   had   quartered  in   the 

summer.  At  nine  o'clock,  after  Klitschka  had 
fed  and  the  patrols  had  come  in,  we  set  out  on 
our  march.  It  was  still  snowing  hard,  and  even 
the  dead  men  that  marked  Rosa's  recent  ride 
were  fast  being  shrouded  in  purest  white.  One 
of  them  Wettstein  pointed  out  as  the  man  with 
whom  he  had  crossed  sabres,  and  he  asked  per- 
mission to  stay  with  the  party  detailed  to  bury 
him,  for  he  had  been  a  "  braff  homme."  With 
his  tender  sympathy  for  friend  or  foe,  he  was 
a  truer  mourner  than  a  dead  soldier  often  gets 
from   the  ranks  of  his   enemy.     Even  this  sad 


84  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

ride  came  to  an  end,  as  all  things  must,  and  at 
the  edge  of  the  town  soldierly  Rosa  stood,  to 
report  that  the  pickets  were  posted  and  our 
quarters  ready.  Giving  him  a  fresh  detail  to  re- 
lieve his  pickets,  and  asking  his  company  at  our 
midnight  supper,  we  pushed  on  to  our  chosen 
house.  Here  we  foimd  all  in  order,  save  that 
the  young  lady  of  the  family  had  so  hastily  put 
on  the  jacket  bearing  the  U.  S.  buttons  of  her 
last  summer's  conquests,  that  she  failed  quite  to 
conceal  the  C.  S.  buttons  on  a  prettier  one  un- 
der it.  She  and  her  mother  scolded  us  for  driv- 
ing the  Rebel  beaux  from  town,  when  there  was 
to  have  been  a  grand  farewell  ball  only  the  next 
night ;  but  they  seemed  in  no  wise  impressed 
with  regret  for  the  friends  who  had  been  killed 
and  wounded  in  the  chase.  It  turned  out  that 
Marmaduke  had  grown  tired  of  reports  that  we 
were  marching  on  him  in  force,  and  would  not 
believe  it  now  until  his  own  men  rode  into  town 
at  nightfall  with  the  marks  of  Rosa's  sabres  on 
their  heads.  The  place  had  been  filled  with 
the  officers  of  his  command,  and  he  with  them, 


WET  T  STEIN.  85 


come  for  their  parting  flirtations  before  the  ball. 
They  were  to  march  to  Little  Rock,  and  their 
men  were  nearly  all  collected  in  the  "  Bottom," 
over  the  river.  On  this  sudden  proof  of  the 
attack,  they  made  a  stampede  for  the  flat-boat 
of  the  rope-ferry,  and  nearly  sunk  it  by  over- 
crowding, the  hindmost  men  cutting  the  rope 
and  swimming  their  horses  across  the  wintry  tor- 
rent. 

We  had  full  possession  of  the  town,  and  were 
little  disturbed  by  the  dropping  shots  from  the 
Rebel  side.  We  visited  on  our  unfaithful  friends 
such  punishment  as  enforced  hospitality  could 
compass,  and,  on  the  whole,  we  had  n't  a  bad 
"time."  The  morning  after  our  arrival  we  lev- 
ied such  contributions  of  supplies  as  were  ne- 
cessary for  our  return  march,  and,  in  order  that 
the  return  might  not  look  like  a  retreat,  we 
loaded  two  wagons  with  hogsheads  of  sugar 
(which  would  be  welcome  in  Davidson's  commis- 
sariat), and  made  every  arrangement  for  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  camping  of  the  whole  army  in 
the  country  back  of  the  town ;  for  our  force  was 


86  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

so  small  that,  with  our  tired  horses,  it  would 
have  been  imprudent  to  turn  our  backs  to  Mar- 
maduke's  little  army,  if  he  supposed  us  to  be 
alone. 

Keeping  the  town  well  picketed  and  making 
much  show  of  laying  out  an  encampment,  we 
started  the  teams  and  the  main  body  of  the 
command  at  nightfall,  holding  back  a  hundred 
men  for  a  cover  until  a  later  hour. 

During  the  evening  the  Rebels  on  the  south 
side  of  the  river  became  suspiciously  quiet,  and 
there  was,  apparently,  some  new  movement  on 
foot.  The  only  possible  chance  for  an  attack  was 
by  Magnus's  ferry,  ten  miles  below,  where  the 
boat  was  so  small  and  the  river  so  wide  that 
not  more  than  twenty  horses  could  be  crossed  in 
an  hour,  and  our  sharpshooters  were  sufficient 
to  prevent  the  removal  of  the  Batesville  boat 
to  that  point.  Still  it  was  important  to  know 
what  was  going  on,  and  especially  important  to 
prevent  even  a  scouting-party  of  the  enemy  from 
harassing  the  rear  of  our  tired  column  by  the 
shorter  road  from  Magnus's  to  Evening   Shade  ; 


WET  T STEIN.  87 


and  I  started  at  nine  o'clock  (when  the  moon 
rose),  with  twenty  men,  to  go  round  that  way, 
directing  the  remainder  of  the  rear-guard  to  fol- 
low the  main  body  at  midnight. 

The  ride  to  Magnus's  was  without  other  ad- 
venture than  bad  roads  and  almost  impassable 
bayous  always  entail,  and  in  a  few  hours  we 
reached  the  plantation,  where  I  had  a  former 
ally  in  an  old  negro  who  had  done  us  good  ser- 
vice during  Curtis's  campaign.  He  said  that  the 
Rebels  had  left  the  Bottom,  and  were  going  to 
Little  Rock,  but,  as  a  precaution  he  took  a 
canoe  and  crossed  over  to  the  house  of  another 
negro  on  the  south  bank,  and  returned  with  a 
confirmation  of  his  opinion.  As  it  was  very  im- 
portant to  know  whether  the  only  enemy  of 
Davidson's  army  had  really  withdrawn  from  his 
front,  and,  as  this  might  be  definitely  learned 
through  the  assistance  of  an  old  scout  who  lived 
in  the  edge  of  the  Bottom,  it  seemed  best  to 
cross  the  river  to  give  him  instructions  for  his 
work. 

I  took  Ruby,  my  best  horse.     He  was  a  sure 


88  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

reliance  under  all  circumstances,  and  he  and  I 
knew  each  other  perfectly.  We  were  at  home  in 
every  foot-path  in  the  country,  having  had  many 
a  summer's  swim  in  this  very  river ;  and  now, 
accompanied  only  by  Wettstein  and  Klitschka, 
I  went  on  to  the  ferry-boat.  It  was  what  is 
known  as  a  "  swing  "  ferry.  A  stout  rope  is 
stretched  between  trees  on  the  opposite  shores, 
and  the  boat  is  attached  to  a  couple  of  pulleys 
arranged  to  traverse  the  length  of  this  rope. 
The  attaching  cords  —  one  at  each  end  of  the 
up-stream  side  of  the  boat  —  are  long  enough  to 
allow  it  to  swing  some  rods  down  the  stream; 
by  shortening  one  of  the  ropes  and  lengthening 
the  other,  the  boat  is  placed  at  an  angle  with 
the  swift  current,  which  propels  it  toward  one 
shore  or  the  other,  the  pulleys  keeping  pace  in 
their  course  on  the  main  rope. 

The  main  rope  was  rough  from  long  use,  and 
often  the  pulleys  would  halt  in  their  course, 
until  the  pull  of  the  advancing  boat  dragged  them 
free.  Then  the  rickety  craft,  shivering  from  end 
to  end,  would  make  a  rapid  shoot,  until  another 


WETTSTEIN.  89 


defective  place  in  the  rope  brought  her  to  again. 
At  each  vibration,  the  horses  nearly  lost  their 
feet,  and  the  surging  stream  almost  sent  its 
muddy  water  over  the  gunwale.  It  was  a  long 
and  anxious  trip,  —  the  rotten  guy- rope  hardly 
serving  to  hold  us  to  our  course.  At  last  we 
reached  the  shore  and  rode  on  to  CraikilFs  house 
in  the  Bottom.  He  had  been  "  conscripted,"  and 
forced  to  go  with  the  army,  so  his  wife  told 
us,  and  she  had  seen  him  march  with  the  rest 
on  the  Fairview  Road  for  Little  Rock.  The  last 
bird  had  flown,  and  we  could  safely  march  back 
at  our  leisure. 

Wettstein  filled  his  pipe,  emptied  his  haver- 
sack for  the  benefit  of  Craikill's  hungry  children, 
and,  cheery  as  ever,  followed  me  to  the  ferry. 
On  the  way  over  he  had  been  as  still  as  a  mouse, 
for  he  was  too  old  a  soldier  to  give  an  enemy  any 
sign  of  our  approach.  But,  as  we  set  out  on  the 
return  trip,  in  the  cold  moonlight,  he  saug  the 
"  Ranz  des  Vaches,"  fondled  his  little -mare,  and, 
unmindful  of  his  wounded  arm,  gave  way  to  the 
flow  of  spirits  that  the  past  few  days'  duty  had 


90  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

checked.  I  never  knew  him  more  gay  and  de- 
lightful ;  and,  as  we  stood  leaning  on  our  sad- 
dles and  chatting  together,  I  congratulated  myself 
upon  the  possession  of  such  a  perpetual  sunbeam. 
We  were  barely  half-way  across,  when,  sud- 
denly, coming  out  of  the  darkness,  riding  half 
hidden  in  the  boiling,  whirling  tide,  a  huge  float- 
ing tree  struck  the  boat  with  a  thud  that  parted 
the  rotten  guy-rope,  and  carried  us  floating  down 
the  stream.  For  a  moment  there  seemed  no  dan- 
ger, but  a  branch  of  the  tree  had  caught  the 
corner  of  the  boat,  and  the  pulleys  had  become 
entangled  in  the  rope.  When  this  had  been 
drawn  to  its  full  length,  and  the  tree  felt  the 
strain,  the  boat  dipped  to  the  current,  filled,  and 
sank  under  our  feet.  I  called  to  Wettstein  to 
take  Klitschka  by  the  tail,  but  it  was  too  late ; 
he  had  grasped  the  saddle  with  the  desperation 
of  a  drowning  man,  and  made  her  fairly  help- 
less. The  boat  soon  passed  from  under  us,  and, 
relieved  of  our  weight,  came  to  the  surface  at 
our  side;  but,  bringing  the  rope  against  poor 
Wettstein's  wounded  arm,  it  tore  loose  his  hold, 


WETT STEIN.  91 


and  soon  went  down  again  in  the  eddy,  and 
Klitschka  was  free. 

"Adieu,  Herr  Oberist;  tenez  Klitschka  pour 
vous !  Adieu  ! "  And  that  happy,  honest  face 
sank  almost  within  reach  of  me.  The  weight  of 
his  arms  prevented  his  rising  again,  and  only  an 
angry  eddy,  glistening  in  the  moonlight,  marked 
his  turbid  grave. 

Ruby,  snorting,  and  struggling  hard  with  the 
current,  pulled  me  safely  to  the  shore,  and  little 
Klitschka  followed  as  well  as  her  loaded  saddle 
would  permit.  For  the  moment,  with  my  own 
life  and  the  lives  of  two  tried  companions  to 
care  for,  I  thought  of  nothing  else ;  but  as  I  sat 
drying  at  Magnus's  roaring  hearth  the  direst  deso- 
lation overwhelmed  me.  Very  far  from  home, — 
far  even  from  the  home-like  surroundings  of  my 
own  camp,  —  I  had  clung  to  this  devoted  fellow 
as  a  part  of  myself.  He  was  a  proven  friend ; 
with  him  I  never  lacked  the  sympathy  that,  in 
the  army  at  least,  is  born  of  constant  compan- 
ionship, and  he  filled  a  place  in  my  life  that 
dearer  friends   at   home    might    not   find.      He 


92  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

was  the  one  comrade  whose  heart,  I  was  sure, 
was  filled  only  with  unquestioning  love  for  me. 
Henceforth  I  must  look  for  support  to  compan- 
ions who  saw  me  as  I  was,  who  knew  my  faults 
and  my  weaknesses,  and  whose  kind  regard  was 
tempered  with  criticism.  The  one  love  that  was 
blind,  that  took  me  for  better  or  for  worse,  had 
been,  in  an  instant,  torn  from  my  life,  and  I 
was  more  sad  than  I  can  tell. 

But  Duty  knows  no  sentiment.  A  saddened 
party,  we  mounted,  to  join  the  main  command; 
and,  as  we  rode  on  through  the  rest  of  that  deso- 
late night,  no  word  passed  to  tell  the  gloom  that 
each  man  felt. 

The  petty  distinctions  of  earthly  rank  were 
swallowed  up  in  a  feeling  of  true  brotherhood, 
and.  Wettstein  —  promoted  now  —  rode  at  our 
head  as  a  worthy  leader,  showing  the  way  to  a 
faithful  performance  of  all  duty,  and  a  kindly 
and  cheerful  bearing  of  all  life's  burdens  ;  and, 
through  the  long  and  trying  campaigns  that  fol- 
lowed, more  than  one  of  us  was  the  better  sol- 
dier for  the  lesson  his  soldierly  life  had  taught. 


CAMPAIGNING  WITH  MAX. 


NION  CITY  was  not  a  city  at  all;  it 
was  hardly  a  village,  and  "Disunion" 
would  have  been  its  fairer  designation. 
It  lay  in  the  woods  at  the  crossing  of  two  rail- 
roads, one  pointing  toward  Mobile  and  one  toward 
Memphis,  but  neither  leading  anywhere.  There 
was  a  tradition  that  trains  had  once  been  run 
upon  each,  but  many  bridges  had  had  to  be  re- 
built to  make  the  short  line  to  Columbus  passa- 
ble, and  the  rest  was  ruin ;  for  Forrest  had  been 
there  with  his  cavalry. 

The  land  was  just  so  much  raised  above  the 
broad  swamp  of  Northwestern  Tennessee  that 
whiskey  with  men  to  drink  it,  and  a  Methodist 
Church  South  with  people  to  attend  it,  were  pos- 
sible.    With  these  meagre  facilities  for  life,  and 


94  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

the  vague  inducement  of  a  railroad-crossing. 
Union  City  had  struggled  into  an  amphibious 
subsistence;  but  it  had  never  thriven,  and  its 
corner-lots  had  but  feebly  responded  to  the  hopes 
of  its  projectors. 

For  many  a  mile  around,  the  forests  and 
swamps  were  wellnigh  impenetrable,  and  the  oc- 
casional clearings  were  but  desolate  oases  in  the 
waste  of  marsh  and  fallen  timber.  The  roads 
were  wood-trails  leading  nowhere  in  particular, 
and  all  marked  a  region  of  the  most  scanty  and 
unfulfilled  promise. 

General  Asboth,  seeing  (by  the  map)  that  it 
commanded  two  lines  of  railroad,  sent  us  to  oc- 
cupy this  strategic  point,  and  we  gradually  accu- 
mulated to  the  number  of  twenty-five  hundred 
cavalry  and  four  thousand  infantry,  drawing  our 
regular  supplies  from  Columbus;  and  occupying 
our  time  with  a  happy  round  of  drills,  inspec- 
tions, horse-races,  cock-fights,  and  poker.  It  was 
not  an  elevating  existence,  but  it  was  charm- 
ingly idle,  and  we  passed  the  serene  and  lovely 
autumn  of  1863  in  a  military  dreamland,  where 


CAMPAIGNING    WITE  MAX.  95 

nothing  ever  came  to  disturb  our  quiet,  or  to 
mar  our  repose  with  the  realities  of  war.  We 
built  ourselves  houses,  we  shot  game  for  our 
tables,  we  made  egg-nog  for  our  evenings,  and 
we  were  happy.  The  charm  of  camp-life  —  with 
just  enough  of  occupation  and  responsibility,  and 
with  enough  improvement  in  the  troops  for  a  re- 
ward—  made  even  this  wilderness  enjoyable.  I 
had  the  advantage  of  seniority  and  command,  and 
the  physical  comforts  that  naturally  gravitate  to- 
ward a  commanding  officer  did  not  fail  me. 

My  house,  built  with  the  mouse-colored  logs 
of  a  Rebel  block-house,  covered  with  the  roof  of 
the  post-office,  and  floored  and  ceiled  with  the 
smoke-mellowed  lining  of  the  Methodist  church, 
was  broad  and  low  and  snug.  Its  windows,  also 
taken  from  the  sanctuary  in  question,  were  set 
on  their  sides,  and  gave  to  each  of  the  two  rooms 
wide,  low-browed  outlooks  into  the  woods  and 
over  the  drill-ground,  that  would  have  made 
worse  quarters  agreeable.  The  bricks  of  an  aban- 
doned domestic  fireside  built  a  spacious  fireplace 
across  an  angle  of  each  of  the  rooms,  and  the  clay 


96  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

of  the  locality  plastered  all  our  chinks  "to  keep 
the  wind  away."  I  have  seen  more  pretentious 
houses  and  more  costly,  but  never  one  in  which 
three  chosen  spirits  —  I  had,  in  a  happy  moment, 
selected  Voisin  and  the  Hun  for  my  staff — got 
more  that  is  worth  the  getting  out  of  the  sim- 
ple and  virtuous  life  of  a  cavalry  headquarters. 
We  were  at  peace  with  all  the  world  (Forrest 
was  in  Mississippi),  our  pay  was  regular,  our 
rations  were  ample,  —  and  Asboth  had  been 
ordered  to   Pensacola. 

Old  A.  J.,  his  successor,  —  every  inch  a  sol- 
dier, and  a  good  fellow  to  the  very  core,  —  used 
sometimes  to  roll  up  his  camp  mattress  and  run 
down  from  Columbus  for  an  inspection.  Those 
are  marked  days  in  our  memories.  He  was  a 
lynx  in  the  field,  and  wry  buttoning  roused  him 
to  articulate  wrath;  but  he  unbuckled  his  sabre 
at  the  door,  and  brought  only  geniality  writhin,  — 
a  mellow  geniality  that  warmed  to  the  influences 
of  our  modest  hospitality,  and  lasted  far  into 
the  night ;  and  then,  when  the  simple  and  in- 
offensive game  was  over,  and  its  scores  were  set- 


CAMPAIGNING    WITH  MAX.  97 

tied,  the  dear  old  boy  —  usually  with  a  smile  of 
conquest  wandering  through  his  gray  beard  — 
would  unroll  his  bundle  before  the  fire  and  sleep 
like  a  baby  until  reveille.  Happy,  happy  days, 
—  and  still  happier  nights ! 

Naturally,  in  such  a  life  as  we  led  at  Union 
City,  our  horses  formed  a  very  important  ele- 
ment in  our  occupation  and  in  our  amusements. 
Soon  after  our  arrival  at  Columbus,  —  an  event 
which  had  taken  place  a  few  months  before, — 
a  spanking  mare  that  I  had  bought  to  replace 
Ruby  had  gone  hopelessly  lame,  and  it  became 
again  important  to  all  who  were  concerned  in 
my  peace  of  mind,  that  a  satisfactory  substitute 
should  be  found  for  her.  I  had  still  in  my  stable 
a  little  thoroughbred  (Guy),  who,  though  excel- 
lent in  all  respects,  was  a  trifle  under  my  weight, 
and  not  at  all  up  to  the  rough  riding  that  was 
a  necessary  part  of  our  army  life.  He  could  go 
anywhere,  could  jump  any  practicable  barrier, 
was  fleet  and  sound,  and  in  all  respects  admira- 
ble, but  he  was  made  for  a  lighter  weight  than 
mine,  and,  except  for  show  and  parade  riding, 
5  G 


98  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

must  mainly  be  used  to  carry  Ike  and  the  sad- 
dle-bags, or  to  mount  a  friend  when  a  friend 
favored  me. 

In  a  second  search,  in  which  most  of  the  offi- 
cers of  the  regiment  took  a  lively  interest,  there 
was  found,  in  Frank  Moore's  Battalion  of  the 
Second  Illinois  Cavalry,  a  tall,  gaunt,  lean,  hag- 
gard, thoroughbred-looking  beast,  which  had  been 
captured  from  Merryweather's  men  in  Western 
Tennessee.  He  was  not  a  handsome  horse,  nor 
was  he  to  the  ordinary  eye  in  any  respect 
promising;  but  a  trial  showed  that  he  had  that 
peculiar  whalebone  character,  and  wiry,  nervous 
action,  which  come  only  with  blood,  and  without 
which  no  horse  is  really  fit  for  the  saddle.  The 
chances  were  very  much  against  him.  He  did 
not  possess  the  first  element  of  beauty,  save  in 
a  clean-cut  head,  a  prominent  eye,  a  quick  ear, 
a  thin  neck,  sloping  shoulders,  high  withers,  and 
the  brilliant  activity  that  no  abuse  had  been 
able  to  conquer.  He  was  held  in  abeyance  un- 
til a  careful  examination  of  the  two  thousand 
horses   at    the    post    showed    that,    even    as   he 


CAMPAIGNING    WITH  MAX.  99 

stood,  he  had  no  equal  there  for  my  purposes. 
Since  he  had  come  into  the  army  he  had  been 
in  the  possession  of  a  private  soldier,  who  had 
done  much  scouting  duty,  and  he  had  been  ini- 
tiated (successfully)  into  the  scrub-racing  which 
Illinois  soldiers  much  affected.  The  serious 
amount  of  one  hundred  and  forty  dollars  was 
hazarded  in  the  venture,  and  he  was  transferred 
to  our  stable.  That  increment  of  value  which 
always  follows  the  purchase  of  a  new  horse 
came  rapidly  in  his  case,  and  it  needed  only  a 
few  gallops  on  the  breezy  bluffs  beyond  Fort 
Halleck,  to  install  him  as  prime  favorite  among 
the  headquarters'  mess. 

He  was  deemed  worthy  of  the  noble  name  of 
Max,  and  under  Ike's  careful  grooming  he  re- 
turned daily  toward  the  blooming  condition  that 
only  Second  Illinois  abuse  had  been  able  to  sub- 
due. In  an  early  race  with  the  Hun  we  were 
ingloriously  beaten;  but  the  Hun  rode  a  mar- 
vellous little  blood  mare,  blooming  with  hun- 
dreds of  bushels  of  oats,  and  with  two  years  of 
careful  handling.     Max,  though  beaten,  was  not 


100  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

discouraged,  and  seemed  to  say  that  with  time 
and  good  treatment  he  would  be  ready  for  a 
more  successful  trial. 

During  his  period  of  tutelage,  and  while  he 
was  kept  from  all  excessive  exertion,  he  was  in- 
ducted into  the  mysteries  of  the  art,  to  him 
quite  new,  of  jumping  timber.  Columbus  had 
been  occupied  by  Rebel  and  Union  soldiers  since 
the  outbreak  of  the  war,  and  its  fences,  far  and 
wide,  had  all  disappeared  ;  but  nowhere  in  the 
world  was  there  a  greater  variety  nor  a  more 
ample  stock  of  fallen  trees,  whose  huge  boles 
made  capital  leaping-bars ;  and  over  these,  al- 
most daily,  for  some  months,  beginning  with  the 
smaller  ones  and  going  gradually  to  the  largest 
we  could  find,  Max  learned  to  carry  a  heavy 
weight  with  a  power  and  precision  that  even 
Euby  could  not  have  excelled. 

During  all  this  time,  ample  feed,  good  shelter, 
regular  exercise,  and  a  couple  of  hours  of  Ike's 
hand-rubbing  daily,  worked  an  uninterrupted  im- 
provement in  limb  and  wind  and  sinews  and  coat, 
until,  by  the   time  we   were   ordered   to   Union 


CAMPAIGNING    WITH  MAX.  101 

City,  Max  had  become  the  pride  of  the  camp. 
He  was  over  sixteen  hands  high,  of  a  solid  dark 
bay  color,  glistening  like  polished  mahogany,  and 
active  and  spirited  as  a  horse  in  training  for  the 
Derby. 

At  Union  City  the  headquarters'  horses  were 
stabled  under  a  capital  shed,  close  at  hand,  and 
all  that  master's  eye  and  servant's  labor  could 
accomplish  for  their  care  and  improvement  was 
lavished  upon  them ;  so  that,  during  our  long 
months'  stay,  we  were  among  the  best-mounted 
men  in  the  Western  army.  Our  pleasure-riding 
and  our  work  lay  through  swampy  wood-roads, 
over  obstructions  of  every  sort,  and  across  the 
occasional  grass  farms,  with  their  neglected  rail- 
fences.  The  weather  was  almost  uninterruptedly 
fine,  our  few  visiting  neighbors  were  miles  away 
from  us,  the  shooting  was  good,  and  the  enjoy- 
ment we  got  from  our  vagabond  life  in  camp  was 
well  supplemented  by  the  royal  rides  we  almost 
daily  took. 

Naturally,  in  a  camp  full  of  idle  men  given 
largely  to  sport,  the  elevating  entertainment  of 


102  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


horse-racing  played  a  prominent  part.  Both  Max 
and  Guy  were  conspicuous  by  their  successes  until, 
long  before  the  close  of  our  leisurely  career,  but 
only  after  they  had  hung  my  walls  with  spurs 
and  whips  and  other  trophies  of  their  successful 
competition  with  all  comers,  both  were  ruled  out 
by  the  impossible  odds  they  were  obliged  to  give. 
The  actual  military  service  required  was  only 
enough  to  convince  me  that  Max  was  a  beast  of 
endless  bottom  and  endurance,  and  that,  accidents 
apart,  he  would  need  no  help  in  any  work  he 
might  be  called  on  to  perform.  For  the  rest  of 
the  war,  with  much  duty  of  untold  severity,  I 
habitually  rode  no  other  horse  for  light  work  or 
for  hard,  for  long  rides  or  for  short  ones,  on  the 
march  or  on  parade ;  and  with  all  my  sentiment 
for  his  charming  predecessors,  I  had  to  confess 
that  his  equal  as  a  campaigner  had  never  come 
under  my  leg.  He  would  walk  like  a  cart-horse 
at  the  head  of  a  marching  column,  would  step 
like  a  lord  in  passing  in  review,  would  prance 
down  the  main  street  of  a  town  as  though  vain 
of  all   applause,  would  leap   any  fence  or  ditch 


CAMPAIGNING    WITH  MAX.  103 

or  fallen  timber  to  which  he  might  be  put,  would 
fly  as  though  shot  from  a  gun  in  passing  along 
the  line;  and  when,  whether  early  or  late,  he 
was  taken  to  his  stable,  would  eat  like  a  hungry 
colt  and  sleep  like  a  tired  plough-horse.  In  all 
weathers  and  under  all  circumstances  he  was 
steady,  honest,  intelligent,  and  ready  for  every 
duty.  I  had  ridden  before,  at  home  and  in  the 
army,  horses  ideally  good ;  I  have  ridden  since, 
over  the  hunting  country  of  Warwickshire  and 
Northamptonshire,  horses  that  were  counted  of 
the  best,  but  never,  before  or  since,  have  I 
mounted  such  a  magnificent  piece  of  perfectly 
trained  and  perfectly  capable  horse-flesh. 

On  one  occasion,  at  Union  City,  word  was 
brought  in  that  a  flag  of  truce  from  Faulkner 
had  arrived  at  our  picket  line,  and  I  rode  out 
for  a  parley  over  a  trifling  matter  of  an  ex- 
change of  prisoners.  The  officer  in  charge  of 
the  flag,  with  the  company  escorting  him,  had 
originally  come  from  our  neighborhood  and  had 
belonged  to  Merryweather's  "band."  As  Max 
trotted  up  to  their  bivouac,  he  was  greeted  with 


104  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

cries  of  recognition,  and  a  lieutenant  of  the  com 
pany  was  kind  enough  to  warn  me  that  I  had 
shown  them  a  stronger  inducement  than  they 
had  hitherto  had  to  make  an  attack  on  our  po- 
sition; for,  since  Frank  Moore  had  captured  the 
horse  I  rode,  they  had  determined  to  regain  him 
at  any  risk.  Happily,  this  laudable  wish  was 
never  fulfilled,  and  Max  remained,  in  spite  of 
the  devices  they  may  have  laid  for  his  recapture. 

During  the  five  months  of  our  stay  at  this 
post,  we  made  some  hard  scouts  in  a  hard  coun- 
try, and  we  held  a  good  part  of  West  Ten- 
nessee under  strict  surveillance,  but  the  most 
memorable  feature  of  all  our  scouting  was  gen- 
erally the  welcome  dismounting  under  the  wide 
eaves  of  our  own  house  ;  not,  I  hope,  that  we  had 
grown  effeminate,  but  a  week's  tramp  through 
the  woods  of  West  Tennessee  offers  little  that 
memory  can  cherish,  and  prepares  one  for  a  sen- 
sation on  the  near  approach  of  comfort. 

But  five  months  of  such  life  is  enough,  and  I 
was  not  sorry  when  the  order  came  that  I  must 
go  for  a  soldier  again. 


CAMPAIGNING    WITH  MAX.  105 

Sherman  was  about  to  advance  eastward  from 
Vicksburg,  destroy  the  lines  of  railroad  by  which 
Forrest  received  supplies  from  the  fertile  prairie 
region  of  Northern  Mississippi,  and  strike  the  Re- 
bellion in  the  pit  of  its  stomach.  A.  J.  was  to 
take  all  my  infantry  down  the  river,  and  the 
cavalry  was  to  move  to  Colliersville,  on  the  line 
of  the  Memphis  and  Charleston  Railroad,  and 
join  a  considerable  cavalry  force  gathering  there 
under  Sooy  Smith  and  Grierson ;  thence  we  were 
to  move  southeasterly  through  Mississippi,  to  en- 
gage Forrest's  forces  and  to  meet  Sherman's  army 
at  the  crossing  of  the  Mobile  and  Ohio  Railroad  at 
Meridian. 

We  lay  in  camp  more  than  a  week,  ready  to 
move,  but  awaiting  orders.  The  country  (a  very 
wet  one)  was  frozen  hard  and  covered  with  snow. 
Our  order  to  march  and  the  thaw  came  together, 
on  the  2  2d  of  January.  We  were  to  cross  the 
Obion  River  (and  bottom)  at  Sharp's  Ferry,  twenty- 
three  miles  southwest  of  our  camp.  "  The  com- 
mand consisted  of  the  Fourth  Missouri  (with  a 
battery),  Second  New  Jersey,  Seventh  Indiana, 
5* 


106  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

Nineteenth  Pennsylvania,  and  Frank  Moore's  Bat- 
talion of  the  Second  Illinois ;  in  all  about  twenty- 
five  hundred  well-mounted  men  present  for  duty. 
The  roads  were  deep  with  mud  and  slush,  and 
every  creek  was  "  out  of  its  banks  "  with  the 
thaw.  We  reached  the  ferry  only  at  nightfall  of 
the  23d,  over  roads  that  had  hourly  growrn  deeper 
and  more  difficult.  Two  regiments  had  crossed, 
through  floating  ice  (eight  horses  at  a  trip),  by 
a  rope-ferry,  and  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening, 
under  a  full  moon  and  a  summer  temperature, 
I  crossed  with  staff  and  escort.  The  river  was 
already  so  swollen  that  we  landed  in  two  feet  of 
water,  and  still  it  was  rising. 

Our  camp  was  fixed  five  miles  away  on  the 
upland.  The  first  mile  was  only  wet  and  nasty, 
and  the  trail  not  hard  to  follow.  Then  we  came 
to  the  "  back  slough,"  thirty  feet  wide,  four  feet 
deep,  and  still  covered  with  four  inches  of  ice. 
Those  who  had  gone  before  had  broken  a  track 
through  this,  and  swept  the  fragments  of  ice  for- 
ward until  near  the  shore  they  were  packed  in 
for  a  width  of  ten  feet  or  more,  and  to  the  full 


CAMPAIGNING    WITH  MAX.  107 

depth  of  the  water.  I  can  make  no  stronger 
statement  than  that  we  all  got  through  safely, 
only  wet  to  the  skin.  How  it  was  done  I  do 
not  pretend  to  know.  Some  went  in  one  way 
and  some  in  another.  All  I  can  assert  is  that 
my  stalwart  old  Max,  when  he  found  himself 
standing,  belly  deep,  in  broken  ice,  settled  quiet- 
ly on  his  haunches  and  took  my  two  hundred 
pounds  with  one  spring  on  to  dry  land  four  feet 
higher  than  his  starting-point,  and  twelve  feet 
away,  —  but  then,  Max  always  was  a  marvel. 
Guy,  who  carried  Ike,  scrambled  over  the  top  of 
the  broken  ice  as  only  he  or  a  cat  could  do.  The 
others  fared  variously.  All  were  drenched,  and 
some  were  hurt,  but  all  got  to  the  shore  at  last. 
Then  came  the  hour-long  tug  to  get  my  ambu- 
lance through  with  its  store  of  tent-hold  gods, 
and  we  started  for  our  remaining  four  miles. 
The  trail,  even  of  cavalry,  is  not  easily  followed 
by  moonlight  when  covered  with  half  a  foot  of 
water,  and  we  lost  our  way  ;  reaching 'camp,  after 
fourteen  miles  of  hard  travel,  at  four  o'clock  in 
the  morning. 


108  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

The  river  was  still  rising  rapidly,  and  word 
was  brought  that  Karge,  with  more  than  half 
the  brigade,  would  have  to  make  a  detour  of 
fifty  miles  and  cross  the  Three  Forks  of  the 
Obion  far  to  the  eastward,  joining  us  some  days 
later,  near  Jackson.  So  we  idled  on,  marching 
a  few  miles  each  day,  camping  early,  cooking  the 
fat  of  the  land  for  our  evening  meal,  cultivating 
the  questionable  friendship  of  the  Rebel  popula- 
tion by  forced  contributions  of  subsistence,  and 
leading,  on  the  whole,  a  peaceful,  unlaborious, 
and  charming  picnic  life.  Finally,  taking  Karge 
again  under  our  wing,  we  pushed  on,  resolutely 
and  rapidly,  over  flooded  swamps,  across  deep, 
rapid  rivers,  and  through  hostile  towns,  to  our 
rendezvous ;  whence,  under  the  command  of  two 
generals,  and  as  part  of  an  army  of  eight  thou- 
sand well -mounted  cavalry  and  light  artillery, 
and  all  in  light  marching  order,  we  started  for 
our  more  serious  work. 

The  chief  in  command  was  a  young  and  hand- 
some, but  slightly  nervous  individual,  who  es- 
chewed the  vanities  of  uniform,  and  had  about 


CAMPAIGNING   WITH  MAX.  109 


himself  and  his   horse  no  evidence  of  his  mili- 
tary character  that  could  not  be  unbuckled  and 
dropped  with  his  sword-belt   in  case  of  impend- 
ing capture.     He  was  vacillating   in   his   orders, 
and  a  little  anxious  in  his  demeanor,  but  he  had 
shown  himself  cool  and  clear-headed  under  fire, 
and  seemed  resolutely  bent  on  the  destruction  of 
the   last  vestige  of  Forrest's  troublesome  army. 
It  would  be  tedious  to  tell  all  the  adventures  of 
our  forward  expedition ;  how  we  marched  in  three 
columns   over  different  roads,  each  for  himself, 
and  with   only  a  vague   notion  where   and  how 
we    should   meet,  and    how  we    should   support 
each  other.     As  it  afterward  proved,  the  details 
of  the  order  of  march  had  been  given  to  the  com- 
manders of  the  other  brigades,  while  I  had  been 
forgotten]  so  that  the  whole  advance  was  vexed 
with  cross-purposes  and  with  the  evidences  of  a 
hidden  misunderstanding.     The  contretemps  that 
thus   came   about   were   annoying,    and,    in    one 
instance,   came  near  being   serious :  as  we  were 
going  into  camp  at  Prairie  Station,  my  advance 
reported  having  come  in  sight  of  the  camp-fires 


110  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


of  the  enemy;  a  skirmish-line  was  sent  forward, 
and  only  on  the  eve  of  engaging  did  they  dis- 
cover that  we  were  approaching  Hepburn's  Bri- 
gade, of  our  column,  which  had  reached  the  same 
point  by  another  road. 

The  first  days  of  our  march  in  Mississippi 
were  through  Tippah  County,  as  rough,  hope- 
less, God-forsaken  a  country  as  was  ever  seen 
outside  of  Southern  Missouri.  Its  hills  were 
steep,  its  mud  was  deep,  its  houses  and  farms 
were  poor,  its  facilities  for  the  subsistence  of  a 
protecting  army  like  ours  were  of  the  most  mea- 
gre description,  and  its  streams  delayed  us  long 
with  their  torrents  of  bottomless  muddy  water, 
fast  swelling  from  the  thaw  that  had  unlocked 
the  snow  of  all  the  deep-buried  hills  and  mo- 
rasses of  their  upper  waters.  We  built  ferry- 
boats and  swamped  them,  built  bridges  and  broke 
them,  and  slowly  and  painfully,  horse  by  horse, 
transferred  the  command  across  the  nasty  river- 
beds. Tippah  Creek  detained  us  and  kept  us 
hard  at  work  all  day  and  all  night,  and  we 
reached  the  Tallahatchce  at  New  Albany  barelj.' 


CAMPAIGNING   WITH  MAX.  \\\ 

in  time  to  ford  our  last  man  across  before  it  rose 
to  an  impassable  depth.  And  then  for  two  days 
we  pressed  forward,  in  company  with  the  whole 
column,  through  the  rough,  rocky,  and  wooded 
country,  reaching  Okolona  only  at  nightfall. 

Here  we  struck  the  marvellous  prairie  region 
of  Northeastern  Mississippi,  literally  a  land  flow- 
ing with  milk  and  honey.  An  interminable,  fer- 
tile, rolling  prairie  lay  before  us  in  every  direc- 
tion. The  stern  rule  of  the  Confederacy  had 
compelled  the  planters  to  offset  every  small  field 
of  cotton  with  a  wide  area  of  corn,  until  the 
region  had  become  known  as  the  granary  of  the 
Southern  army.  Not  only  must  every  land- 
owner devote  his  broadest  fields  to  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  much-needed  cereal,  but  one  tenth  of 
all  his  crop  must  be  stacked  for  public  use  in 
cribs  at  the  side  of  the  railroad. 

It  was  an  important  incident  of  our  mission 
to  destroy  everything  which  directly  or  indirectly 
could  afford  subsistence  to  the  Rebel  forces ;  and 
during  the  two  days  following  our  arrival  at 
Okolona,  while  we  marched  as  far  south  as  West 


112  WHIP  AND  SPUE. 

Point,  the  sky  was  red  with  the  flames  of  burn- 
ing corn  and  cotton.  On  a  single  plantation, 
our  flanking  party  burned  thirty-seven  hundred 
bushels  of  tithe  corn,  which  was  cribbed  near 
the  railroad;  no  sooner  was  its  light  seen  at  the 
plantation  houses  than  hundreds  of  negroes,  who 
swarmed  from  their  quarters  to  join  our  column, 
fired  the  rail-built  cribs  in  which  the  remaining 
nine-tenths  of  the  crop  was  stored.  Driven  wild 
with  the  infection,  they  set  the  torch  to  man- 
sion house,  stables,  cotton-gin,  and  quarters,  un- 
til the  whole  village-like  settlement  was  blazing 
in  an  unchecked  conflagration.  To  see  such 
wealth,  and  the  accumulated  products  of  such 
vast  labor,  swept  from  the  face  of  the  earth, 
gave  to  the  aspect  of  war  a  saddening  reality, 
which  was  in  strong  contrast  to  the  peaceful 
and  harmless  life  our  brigade  had  thus  far  led. 
In  all  this  prairie  region  there  is  no  waste  land, 
and  the  evidences  of  wealth  and  fertility  lay 
before  us  in  all  directions.  As  we  marched,  the 
negroes  came  en  masse  from  every  plantation  to 
join   our  column,  leaving  only  fire  and  absolute 


CAMPAIGNING   WITH  MAX.  113 

destruction  behind  them.  It  was  estimated  that 
during  these  two  days'  march  two  thousand 
slaves  and  one  thousand  mules  were  added  to 
our  train. 

The  incidents  of  all  this  desolation  were  often 
sickening  and  heart-rending;  delicate  women  and 
children,  whom  the  morning  had  found  in  peace 
and  plenty,  and  glowing  with  pride  in  the  valor 
of  Southern  arms  and  the  certainty  of  an  early 
independence  for  their  beloved  half-country,  found 
themselves,  before  nightfall,  homeless,  penniless, 
and  alone,  in  the  midst  of  a  desolate  land. 

Captain  Frank  Moore,  the  Cossack  of  our 
brigade,  went  at  night  to  an  outlying  plantation, 
of  which  the  showy  mansion-house  stood  on  a 
gentle  acclivity  in  the  edge  of  a  fine  grove. 
Here  lived  alone  with  an  only  daughter,  a  beau- 
tiful girl,  a  man  who  had  been  conspicuous  in 
his  aid  to  the  Rebellion,  and  whose  arrest  had 
been  ordered.  The  squadron  drew  up  in  front 
of  the  house  and  summoned  its  owner  to  come 
forth.  He  came,  armed,  sullen,  stolid,  and  de- 
termined, but   obviously  unnerved  by  the   force 

H 


114  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

confronting  him.  Behind  him  followed  his 
daughter,  dressed  in  white,  and  with  her  long 
light  hair  falling  over  her  shoulders.  The  sight 
of  the  hated  "Yanks"  crazed  her  with  rage, 
and  before  her  father  could  reply  to  the  ques- 
tion with  which  he  had  been  accosted,  she 
called  to  him  wildly,  "Don't  speak  to  the  vil- 
lains !  Shoot !  shoot  them  down,  shoot  them 
down ! "  wringing  her  hands,  and  screaming  with 
rage.  The  excitement  was  too  much  for  his 
judgment,  and  he  fired  wildly  on  the  troops. 
He  was  riddled  through  and  through  with  bul- 
lets; and  as  Moore  turned  away,  he  left  that 
fine  house  blazing  in  the  black  night,  and  light- 
ing up  the  figure  of  the  crazy  girl  as  she  wan- 
dered, desolate  and  beautiful,  to  and  fro  before 
her  burning  home,  unheeded  by  the  negroes 
who  ran  with  their  hastily  made  bundles  to  join 
the  band  of  their  deliverers.  Moore's  descrip- 
tion of  this  scene  in  the  simple  language  that 
it  was  his  unpretending  way  to  use,  gave  the 
most  vivid  picture  we  had  seen  of  the  unmiti- 
gated horror  and  badness  of  war. 


CAMPAIGNING   WITH  MAX.  115 

As  an  instrument  of  destruction  in  the  ene- 
my's country,  our  raid  had  thus  far  been  more 
successful  than  we  could  have  anticipated;  but 
we  had  come  for  even  more  serious  business 
than  this,  and  there  were  already  indications 
that  its  main  purpose  would  be  a  failure.  Our 
commander  had  evidently  no  stomach  for  a  close 
approach  to  the  enemy,  and  his  injunctions  at 
Colliersville  that  we  were  to  try  always  to  "  Fight 
at  close  quarters ! "  "  Go  at  them  as  soon  as 
possible  with  the  sabre ! "  and  other  valorous 
ejaculations,  were  in  singular  contrast  to  the 
impressions  ho  evinced  as  the  prospect  of  an 
actual  engagement  drew  near. 

Forrest  was  in  our  front  with  about  our  own 
number  of  cavalry,  but  without  artillery,  of 
which  we  had  twenty  good  pieces.  The  open 
country  offered  good  fighting  ground,  and  gave 
to  our  better  drilled  and  more  completely  or- 
ganized forces  a  decided  advantage,  even  with- 
out our  great  odds  in  artillery.  There"  lay  before 
us  a  fair  opportunity  for  dispersing  the  most 
successful  body  of  cavalry  in  the  Rebel  service; 


116  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

and,  could  we  effect  a  junction  with  Sherman, 
we  should  enable  him  to  divide  the  Confederacy 
from  Vicksburg  to  Atlanta.  One  of  the  most 
brilliant  and  damaging  campaigns  of  the  war 
seemed  ready  to  open.  Its  key  lay  in  our  suc- 
cessful engagement,  on  a  fair  field,  with  an  infe- 
rior force.  Yet  all  of  us  who  were  in  a  position 
to  know  the  spirit  with  which  we  were  com- 
manded were  conscious  of  a  gradual  oozing  out 
at  the  finger-ends  of  the  determination  to  make 
a  successful  fight ;  and  it  was  a  sad  night  for  us 
all  when,  at  West  Point,  with  our  skirmish-line 
steadily  engaging  the  Rebel  outposts,  an  order 
came  that  we  were  to  fall  back  before  daybreak 
toward  Okolona. 

The  brigade  commanders  and  their  staffs  had 
had  severe  duty  in  the  scattered  work  of  destruc- 
tion, and  even  Max,  tough  though  he  was,  had 
been  almost  overworked  with  constant  galloping 
to  and  fro,  and  with  the  frequent  countermarch- 
ing our  varying  orders  had  required.  Still  he  was 
better  than  his  comrades,  and  many  a  man  was 
anxious  for  his  mount,  should  our  retreat  be 
pressed. 


CAMPAIGNING    WITH  MAX.  117 

"  ~  — _^ — — — ^— — — ^_ _— __— ^ — — — — 

Early  in  the  morning  we  "were  on  our  way 
toward  the  rear,  —  about  eight  thousand  caval- 
ry, ten  sections  of  artillery,  two  thousand  pack- 
mules,  and  an  unnumbered  cloud  of  fugitive  slaves 
mounted  on  their  masters'  mules,  often  two  or 
three  on  each,  and  clustering  under  our  shadow 
as  their  only  means  of  escape  to  the  happy  land 
of  freedom.  In  an  organized  advance,  all  of  this 
vast  hanging  on  could  be  kept  at  the  rear  and 
in  good  order;  but  on  a  retreat  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation  always  attacks  first  the  non-com- 
batant element,  and  during  all  the  days  that  fol- 
lowed, we  found  our  way  constantly  blocked  with 
these  throngs  of  panic-stricken  people. 

No  sooner  had  we  turned  tail  than  Forrest  saw 
his  time  had  come,  and  he  pressed  us  sorely  all 
day  and  until  nightfall,  and  tried  hard  to  gain 
our  flanks.  A  hundred  times  we  might  have 
turned  and  given  him  successful  battle,  but,  at 
every  suggestion  of  this,  we  received  from  our 
general,  who  was  well  in  advance  of  the  retiring 
column,  the  order  to  push  forward  and  give  our 
rear  a  free  road  for  retreat.     Midnight  found  us 


118  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

again  in  the  vicinity  of  Okolona,  and  the  next 
daybreak  showed  the  enemy's  long  column  filing 
out  of  the  woods  and  stretching  well  on  toward 
our  right  flank. 

Even  the  plains  of  Texas  could  offer  no  field 
better  suited  for  a  cavalry  engagement,  and  it 
was  with  satisfaction  that  we  received,  at  five 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  an  order  to  prepare  at 
once  for  a  fight;  but  our  men  were  barely 
mounted  and  in  line  when  an  order  came  to 
turn  our  backs  upon  this  open  field,  and  to  re- 
treat with  all  expedition  toward  Memphis. 

When  we  left  Okolona  we  left  hope  behind,  for 
our  road  struck  at  once  into  a  wooded,  hilly  coun- 
try, full  of  by-ways  and  cross-roads  known  to  the 
enemy  and  unknown  to  us,  and  we  well  knew  that 
this  movement  would  double  Forrest's  power  and 
divide  our  own.  Then,  for  a  long  day,  tired  and 
hungry  from  the  hard  work  and  constant  move- 
ment we  had  just  gone  through,  and  with  our 
horses  half-fed  and  overworked,  we  pushed  on, 
our  rear  often  attacked  and  sometimes  broken, 
our  mule-train  and  negroes  thrown  into  frequent 


CAMPAIGNING   WITH  MAX.  119 

confusion,  one  of  our  brigades  demoralized  and 
put  to  flight,  and  the  enemy  still  pressing  our 
rear  and  reaching  for  our  flanks.  At  last,  to- 
wards night,  it  became  evident  that  a  stand 
must  be  made  or  all  would  be  entirely  lost,  and 
at  Ivy  Farm,  near  Pontotoc,  we  found  a  broad, 
open  hill  top,  with  large  fields,  high  fences,  and 
stout  log-houses,  which  offered  an  opportunity. 
By  this  time  the  command  was  too  widely  sep- 
arated, and  some  of  it  too  much  disorganized, 
for  the  concentration  of  even  a  whole  brigade, 
but  a  part  of  Hepburn's  and  a  part  of  my  own 
were  disentangled  from  the  corral  of  fugitives 
and  brought  into  line.  Both  of  our  generals 
were  upon  the  field,  and  to  our  surprise  both 
seemed  brave  and  resolute;  and  this  not  with 
the  resolution  of  despair,  for  the  actual  imme- 
diate necessity  of  fighting  often  steadies  nerves 
which  are  easily  shaken  by  the  anticipation  of 
danger.  Brave  they  were,  but  not  always  of  the 
same  mind,  and  conflicting  orders  continued  to 
add  to  our  embarrassment  and  insecurity. 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  detail  all  the  incidents 


120  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

of  the  opening  of  the  short  engagement ;  it  was 
ended  by  the  only  legitimate  cavalry  charge  made 
by  the  "  Vierte  Missouri "  during  the  whole  of  its 
four  years'  history. 

We  had  withdrawn  from  the  line  where  we  had 
been  fighting  on  foot,  had  mounted,  formed,  and 
drawn  sabre ;  the  road  about  one  hundred  yards 
in  front  of  us  was  swarming  with  Rebels,  who 
crept  along  the  fence-lines  and  in  the  edge  of 
the  bordering  woods,  and  kept  up  a  steady  rain 
of  fire  well  over  our  heads,  where  we  heard  that 
pfwit  —  pfivit  —  pfwit  of  flying  bullets  which, 
happily,  has  no  relative  in  the  whole  chorus  of 
sounds,  and  which  is  heard  above  all  the  din  of 
battle,  and  is  felt  through  every  remotest  nerve. 

At  the  command  "Forward,"  excitement  ran 
down  the  line,  and  there  was  a  disposition  for  an 
immediate  rush.  But  "Steady  —  right  dress  — 
trot !"  in  a  measured  tone,  taken  up  in  turn  by 
the  company  officers,  brought  back  all  the  effect 
of  our  three  years'  discipline  of  the  drill-ground. 
Later,  "  Steady  —  gallop  —  right  dress  ! "  accel- 
erated the  speed  without  disturbing  the   align- 


CAMPAIGNING   WITH  MAX.  121 

ment,  and  then,  at  last,  "Charge!"  and  with  a 
universal  yelling  and  brandishing  of  sabres  we 
went  forward  like  the  wind.  I  then  felt  how 
mad  a  venture  we  had  undertaken,  for  before 
us  was  the  enemy,  it  is  true,  but  the  enemy  be- 
hind a  high  and  stout,  staked  and  ridered  rail- 
fence.  As  we  drew  very  near  this,  still  under 
heavy  fire,  which  now  at  the  short  range  was 
telling,  the  command  became  conscious  that  the 
six-foot  fence  would  withstand  our  shock,  and  it 
wavered.  I  turned  to  my  bugler  to  sound  the 
recall,  when  I  saw  him  out  of  the  corner  of  my 
eye,  his  white  horse  rearing  literally  to  his  full 
height  and  falling  backward  with  a  crash  that 
must  have  killed  the  poor  boy  at  once.  The 
recall  was  not  needed  :  the  regiment  had  turned 
and  was  running.  The  officers,  being  the  best 
mounted  and  generally  the  lightest  weights,  soon 
reached  the  front,  and  "Steady  —  right  dress  — 
trot !  Steady  —  right  dress  —  trot ! "  was  re- 
peated along  the  line,  until  the  drill-ground 
precision  was  regained,  and  then  "By  fours  — 
right  about  —  wheel!"  and  we  stood  facing  the 
6 


122  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

enemy  again,  ready  for  another  advance.  Max 
had  been  struck  by  a  grazing  bullet  and  had 
been  plunging  heavily,  but  the  wound  was  not 
serious  and  he  was  soon  quieted.  We  now  saw 
that  our  charge,  futile  though  it  seemed,  had 
done  its  work.  The  advance  of  the  enemy  was 
checked;  the  sight  of  troops  that  could  retire 
and  re-form  for  a  new  attack  seemed  to  have  a 
stunning  effect  upon  them.  Practically  the  en- 
gagement was  ended. 

Subsequently,  one  of  Forrest's  staff  officers  told 
the  Hun  that  the  size  of  the  division  which  had 
charged  was  variously  estimated  at  from  five  to 
ten  thousand,  but  that  he  had  been  accustomed 
to  such  things  and  knew  that  we  were  not  more 
than  two  thousand.  In  fact,  we  were  less  than 
six  hundred.  Forrest's  report  of  the  battle  of 
Pontotoc  states  that  the  engagement  was  ended 
"by  a  cavalry  charge  of  the  enemy,  which  was 
repulsed." 

There  was  still  some  sharp  scrimmaging,  and 
we  had  to  make  two  or  three  more  squadron 
and   company  charges  to   drive   away  small   at- 


CAMPAIGNING   WITH  MAX.  123 

tacks  upon  our  retreating  guns;  but  the  battle, 
as  a  battle,  was  over,  and  Forrest's  whole  advance 
had  been  stopped  and  ended  by  six  hundred 
Fourth  Missouri  Dutchmen,  galloping,  yelling, 
and  swinging  their  sabres  at  several  thousand 
men  well  secured  behind  a  rail-fence.  I  had 
before,  in  drill-ground  charges,  seen  old  soldiers 
and  experienced  officers  jump  down  and  run  away 
from  a  fence  on  which  they  were  sitting  to  watch 
the  advance  of  charging  cavalry  which  they  knew 
must  wheel  before  coming  within  five  rods  of 
them;  but  I  had  never  supposed  that  hot- 
blooded  soldiers,  in  the  full  excitement  of  a  suc- 
cessful attack,  could  be  unnerved  and  turned  by 
the  roar  and  thundering  oncoming  of  a  regiment 
that  could  by  no  possibility  reach  them.  Our 
first  setting  out  had  driven  back  a  thin  skir- 
mish-line which  had  to  cross  the  fence  under 
high  speed ;  this,  doubtless,  aided  in  the  debdcle ; 
the  charge  had  stunned  them,  but  it  was  the  rally 
that  stopped  the  pursuit. 

The  rest  of  our  march  was  without  interesting 
inoiAint   all   the   way   to   Memphis,  but   it   was 


124  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

almost  incessant,  day  and  night;  without  inci- 
dent, that  is,  that  it  is  worth  while  to  tell  here, 
but  our  days  and  nights  upon  the  road  were  filled 
with  annoyance  and  disgust,  and  with  a  store  of 
unhappy  and  ludicrous  memories  that  will  last 
the  lifetime  of  all  who  knew  them. 

One  day,  at  New  Albany,  Max  and  I  were  feed- 
ing and  sleeping  in  the  door  of  an  old  mill  while 
the  command  was  slowly  crossing  the  antiquated 
bridge  over  the  Tallahatchie,  when  I  was  awak- 
ened by  Grierson's  riding  up  in  great  alarm,  call- 
ing upon  me  "  for  God's  sake "  to  use  the  ford 
as  well  as  the  bridge,  for  Hepburn  was  being  cut 
to  pieces  in  the  rear,  and  I  must  give  him  the 
full  road  for  his  retreat.  I  had  always  been  a 
respectful  subordinate,  but  none  of  us  were  then 
in  the  best  temper ;  I  did  not  believe  a  word  of 
it,  and  I  frankly  told  him  so.  Even  old  Max 
pricked  up  his  ears  and  snorted  as  if  in  derision. 
Almost  as  we  were  talking,  there  came  an  aid 
from  Hepburn  saying  that  he  had  found  a  good 
supply  of  forage  and  would  be  glad  to  go  into 
camp  for  the  night.     But  there  was  no  camp  to 


CAMPAIGNING    WITH  MAX.  125 

be  thought  of  for  that  tired  crew ;  the  bogey  of 
incessant  pursuit  loomed  up  portentously  close 
upon  our  rear-guard,  and  sent  its  shadow  deep 
into  the  bowels  of  our  commander,  who  was  miles 
away  in  the  advance,  and  who  would  allow  us 
only  the  fewest  possible  hours  in  the  very  dead 
of  night  for  hasty  cooking  and  scant  repose.  We 
were  a  worn  and  weary  lot  as  we  finally  went  into 
camp  at  the  rear  of  the  town ;  worn  and  weary, 
sadly  demoralized,  and  almost  dismounted.  I 
had  lost  fifteen  hundred  good  horses,  and  my 
men,  who  had  been  eager  and  ready  for  a  suc- 
cessful campaign,  were  broken  in  spirit  and  sadly 
weakened  in  discipline. 

All  who  had  been  compelled  to  bear  the  brunt 
of  the  hard  work  now  needed  for  themselves  and 
their  horses  absolute  rest  for  days;  but  being 
called  into  the  city  the  morning  after  our  arrival, 
my  eyes  were  greeted  with  the  spectacle  of  Gen- 
eral Sooy  Smith,  no  longer  ill,  and  with  no  trace 
of  shame  or  annoyance  on  his  face.  He,  had  shed 
his  modest  and  prudent  attire,  and  shone  out  with 
all  the  brass  radiance  of  a  full-fledged  major-gen- 


126  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

eral.  From  this  time  until  the  Fourth  Missouri 
cavalry  was  mustered  out  of  service,  our  head- 
quarters were  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of 
Memphis,  and  our  life  was  much  more  active  than 
it  had  been  at  Union  City. 

Not  very  much  is  to  be  said  for  Max  during 
this  time,  except  in  connection  with  the  Sturgis 
expedition,  beyond  the  fact  that  we  lay  long  in 
the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  race-course,  which 
we  repaired  and  used  faithfully,  and,  so  far  as  he 
was  concerned,  with  eminent  success.  The  more 
frequent  necessity  for  duty,  the  great  labor  of 
remounting,  reorganizing,  and  redrilling  the  com- 
mand, united  with  the  greater  publicity  of  our  po- 
sition to  lay  some  restraint  on  our  mode  of  life, 
and  to  make  our  conduct  more  circumspect.  Still 
we  were  not  miserable,  and  the  neighborhood  of 
a  large  town  has,  to  a  well-regulated  headquarters' 
mess,  its  compensations  as  well  as  its  drawbacks. 

Sturgis's  expedition  to  Guntown  and  back  — 
especially  back  —  has  passed  into  history,  and 
its  unwritten  memories  will  always  remain  with 
those  who  took  part  in  it. 


CAMPAIGNING   WITH  MAX.  127 


Guntown  is  far  away  in  Northeastern  Missis- 
sippi. It  is  not  laid  down  on  the  map  of  the 
country,  but  it  lies  just  across  the  Tishamingo 
Creek,  and  it  consists  mainly  of  two  plantation 
houses  and  a  school-house.  Our  stay  there  was 
not  long,  and  we  were  too  much  occupied  to 
study  the  locality  minutely,  but  it  is  my  im- 
pression that  the  most  important  incident  in  its 
history  was  connected  with  our  visit. 

We  were  a  force  of  about  nine  thousand  in- 
fantry, cavalry,  and  artillery,  —  some  black  and 
some  white,  some  good  and  some  bad,  —  sent  out 
by  Sherman  as  a  tub  to  the  Forrest  whale;  a 
diversion  to  keep  this  commander  from  joining 
Hood  in  Northern  Georgia;  though  I  doubt  if 
even  General  Sherman  in  his  moments  of  wildest 
enthusiasm  anticipated  just  the  issue  that  fol- 
lowed. Our  march  out  was  not  rapid,  and  it 
was  well  ordered.  We  were  allowed  to  take  our 
train,  and  old  John  Ellard's  four  stupendous 
mules  drew  our  headquarters'  wagon,  well  laden 
with  the  comforts  we  had  accumulated  during 
a  long  service,  including  a  brand-new,  well-fur- 


128  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

nished,  and  abundantly  stored  camp-chest  that 
had  just  arrived  from  St.  Louis.  So  far  as  the 
comforts  of  a  home  for  five  youngsters  can  be 
stored  in  one  mule-wagon,  we  were  well  supplied 
for  a  campaign  of  any  length ;  and  judging  from 
the  mess-tables  to  which  we  were  invited,  others 
of  the  command  were  no  less  well  provided.  In 
due  time  we  reached  the  town  of  Ripley,  a  rather 
pretty  New-England-looking  village,  but,  like  all 
Southern  towns  at  that  time,  entirely  devoid  of 
men  and  overflowing  with  women  of  the  most 
venomous  and  spiteful  sort,  who  did  all  in  their 
power  to  add  to  the  interest  of  the  Sunday  even- 
ing we  passed  in  their  company. 

We  had  some  light  skirmishing  on  our  arrival, 
but  whoever  it  was  that  attacked  us  withdrew 
and  left  us  in  undisturbed  possession  of  the  com- 
fortable rooms  and  fireplaces  of  the  town.  Our 
next  day's  march  brought  us  to  a  large  open 
plantation  on  a  commanding  hill,  whence  our 
evening  scouting-parties  soon  found  the  enemy 
posted  in  some  force  and  apparently  disposed 
for  an  engagement. 


CAMPAIGNING   WITH  MAX.  129 

It  seemed  always  Forrest's  plan  to  select  his 
own  fighting-ground,  and  the  plan  of  our  com- 
manders to  gratify  him.  Sturgis  committed  the 
usual  folly  of  trying  to  hold  every  inch  he  had 
gained,  and  of  forming  his  line  of  battle  on  the 
head  of  the  column  and  under  fire. 

We  breakfasted  at  three  in  the  morning,  and 
marched  at  half  past  four.  My  command  had 
the  advance.  The  enemy  allowed  himself  to  be 
easily  driven  until  half  past  eight,  when  he  made 
some  show  of  resistance.  At  this  time  the  last 
of  our  regiments  could  hardly  have  left  the 
camping-ground,  and  probably  a  judicious  re- 
treat would  have  drawn  Forrest's  whole  force 
back  to  the  open  country  we  had  left.  But 
"retreat"  was  not  yet  written  on  our  banners 
(of  that  day),  and  orders  came  from  our  general 
to  support  the  advance-guard,  form  line  of  battle, 
and  hold  our  position.  So  far  as  the  cavalry 
brigade  was  concerned  this  was  easily  done,  and 
we  got  into  good  line  near  the  edge  of  a  wood 
without  difficulty.  Here,  for  four  mortal  hours, 
or  until  half  past  twelve,  we  carried  on  a  tol- 
6*  i 


130  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

erably  equal  warfare,  both  sides  blazing  away 
at  each  other  with  little  effect  across  the  six 
hundred  yards  of  cleared  valley  that  lay  be- 
tween two  skirts  of  wood.  So  far  as  the  endur- 
ance of  our  troops  was  concerned,  this  engagement 
could  have  been  kept  up  until  nightfall,  though 
our  ranks  were  slowly  thinning.  Several  desper- 
ate charges  were  made  on  our  position,  and  were 
repulsed  with  considerable  loss  to  both  sides. 
Pending  the  arrival  of  the  infantry  it  would 
have  been  folly  for  us  to  attempt  a  further 
advance,  but  had  we  been  properly  supported, 
or,  better,  had  we  at  once  fallen  back  upon  our 
support,  we  might  have  given,  as  the  post  helium 
reports  of  Forrest's  officers  show,  a  better  end- 
ing to  the  day's  work.  It  was  only  at  half  past 
twelve,  when  our  ammunition  was  reduced  to  five 
rounds  per  man,  and  when  our  battery  had  fired 
its  last  shot,  that  the  infantry  began  to  arrive, 
and  then  they  came  a  regiment  at  a  time,  or  only 
so  fast  as  the  Forrest  mill  could  grind  them  up 
in  detail. 

They  had  taken  our  place,  and  we  had  with- 


CAMPAIGNING   WITH  MAX.  131 

drawn  to  their  rear,  where  we  were  joined  by 
one  after  another  of  the  defeated  or  exhausted 
infantry  regiments.  Little  by  little  the  enemy 
pressed  upon  us,  gaining  rod  after  rod  of  our 
position,  until  finally  our  last  arriving  troops,  a 
splendid  colored  regiment,  reached  the  field  of 
battle  at  double-quick,  breathless  and  beaten  by 
their  own  speed,  barely  in  time  to  check  the 
assault  until  we  could  cross  the  creek  and  move 
toward  the  rear.  The  retreat  was  but  fairly  be- 
gun when  we  came  upon  our  train  of  two  hundred 
wagons  piled  pell-mell  in  a  small  field  and  blocked 
in  beyond  the  possibility  of  removal.  With  sad 
eyes  we  saw  John  Ellard  cut  his  traces  and  leave 
all  that  was  dear  to  us  —  tents,  camp-chest,  poker- 
table,  and  all  that  we  cherished  —  to  inevitable 
capture.  The  train  was  our  tub  to  the  whale; 
and  while  Forrest's  men  were  sacking  our  treas- 
ures, and  refilling  the  caissons  of  all  our  batteries, 
which  they  had  captured,  we  had  time  to  form 
for  the  retreat,  more  or  less  orderly  according 
as  we  had  come  early  or  late  off  the  field.  The 
demoralizing  roar  of  our  own  guns,  and  the  howl- 


132  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

ing  over  our  heads  of  our  own  shells,  together 
with  the  sharp  rattle  of  musketry  in  our  rear, 
hastened  and  saddened  the  ignominious  flight  of 
the  head  of  our  column,  though,  for  some  reason, 
the  enemy's  advance  upon  us  was  slow. 

All  that  long  night  we  marched  on,  without 
food  and  without  rest.  At  early  dawn  we  reached 
Ripley,  where  we  paused  for  breath.  Max  had 
been  ridden  almost  uninterruptedly  for  twenty- 
four  hours,  and  for  four  hours  had  done  the  con- 
stant hard  work  that  the  supervision  of  a  long 
line  in  active  engagement  had  made  necessary; 
and  he  was  glad  to  be  unsaddled  and  turned  for 
fifteen  minutes  into  a  scantily  grown  paddock, 
where  he  rolled  and  nibbled  and  refreshed  him- 
self as  much  as  ordinary  horses  do  with  a  whole 
night's  rest.  The  ambulances  with  our  groaning 
wounded  men  came  pouring  into  the  village,  and 
to  our  surprise,  those  women,  who  had  so  recently 
given  only  evidence  of  a  horrified  hatred,  pressed 
round  to  offer  every  aid  that  lay  in  their  power, 
and  to  comfort  our  suffering  men  as  only  kind- 
hearted  women  can. 


CAMPAIGNING    WITH  MAX.  133 

With  the  increasing  daylight  the  pursuit  was 
reopened  with  vigor,  and  on  we  went,  and  ever 
on,  marching  all  that  day,  our  rear-guard  being 
constantly  engaged,  and  hundreds  of  our  men 
being  captured,  thousands  more  scattering  into 
the  woods.  My  lieutenant-colonel,  Von  Helm- 
rich,  who  had  been  for  twenty-eight  years  a 
cavalry  officer  in  Germany,  and  who,  after  thir- 
teen months  in  Libby  Prison,  had  overtaken  us 
as  we  were  leaving  Memphis,  was  recaptured 
and  carried  back  to  Richmond,  —  to  die  of  a 
good  dinner  on  his  second  release,  ten  months 
later.  At  nightfall,  the  pursuit  growing  weak, 
we  halted  to  collect  together  our  stragglers, 
but  not  to  rest,  and  after  a  short  half-hour 
pushed  on  again;  and  all  that  interminable 
night,  and  until  half  past  ten  the  next  morn- 
ing, when  we  reached  Colliersville  and  the  rail- 
road, reinforcements,  and  supplies,  we  marched, 
marched,  marched,  without  rest,  without  sleep, 
and  without  food.  The  cavalry-men  were  mainly 
dismounted  and  driving  their  tired  jades  before 
them,  only  Max  and  a  few  others  carrying  their 


134  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


riders  to  the  very  end,  and  coming  in  with  a 
whinny  of  content  to  the  familiar  stables  and 
back-yards  of  the  little  town. 

Most  other  officers  whose  service  had  been  as 
constant  as  mine  had  had  extra  horses  to  ride 
for  relief;  but  I  had  never  yet  found  march  too 
long  for  Max's  wiry  sinews,  and  trusted  to  him 
alone.  He  had  now  been  ridden  almost  abso- 
lutely without  intermission,  and  much  of  the 
time  at  a  gallop  or  a  rapid  trot,  for  fifty-four 
hours.  I  had  had  for  my  own  support  the 
excitement  and  then  the  anxious  despair  of  re- 
sponsible service,  and  Ike  had  filled  his  haver- 
sack with  hard-bread  from  John  Ellard's  aban- 
doned wagon;  an  occasional  nibble  at  this,  and 
unlimited  pipes  of  tobacco,  had  fortified  me  in 
my  endurance  of  the  work;  but  Max  had  had 
in  the  whole  time  not  the  half  of  what  he  would 
have  made  light  of  for  a  single  meal.  I  have 
known  and  have  written  about  brilliant  feats 
of  other  horses,  but  as  I  look  over  the  whole 
range  of  all  the  best  animals  I  have  seen,  I 
bow   with  respect  to  the  wonderful  courage,  en- 


CAMPAIGNING   WITH  MAX.  135 

durance,  and  fidelity  of  this  superbly  useful 
brute. 

There  is  an  elasticity  in  youth  and  health, 
trained  and  hardened  by  years  of  active  field- 
service,  which  asserts  itself  under  the  most  de- 
pressing circumstances.  Even  this  shameful  and 
horrible  defeat  and  flight  had  their  ludicrous 
incidents,  which  we  were  permitted  to  appreci- 
ate. Thus,  for  instance,  during  a  lull  in  the 
engagement  at  Guntown,  I  had  seated  myself  in 
a  rush-bottomed  chair  under  the  lee  of  a  broad 
tree-trunk ;  a  prudent  pig,  suspecting  danger, 
had  taken  shelter  between  the  legs  of  the  chair, 
leaving,  however,  his  rear  unprotected.  Random 
bullets  have  an  odd  way  of  finding  weak  places, 
and  it  was  due  to  one  of  these  that  I  was  un- 
seated, with  an  accompaniment  of  squeal,  by  the 
rapid  and  articulate  flight  of  my  companion. 

During  our  last  night's  march,  my  brigade 
having  the  advance,  and  I  being  at  its  rear, 
Grierson  ordered  me  to  prevent  the  pushing 
ahead  of  the  stragglers  of  the  other  brigades, 
who  were  to  be  recognized,  he  reminded  me,  by 


136  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

their  wearing  hats  (mine  wore  caps).  The  order 
was  peremptory,  and  was  to  be  enforced  even  at 
the  cost  of  cutting  the  offenders  down.  Grier- 
son's  adjutant  was  at  my  side ;  we  were  all 
sleeping  more  or  less  of  the  time,  but  constantly 
some  hatted  straggler  was  detected  pushing 
toward  the  front,  and  ordered  back,  —  the  ad- 
jutant being  especially  sharp-eyed  in  detecting 
the  mutilated  sugar-loaves  through  the  gloom. 
Finally,  close  to  my  right  and  pushing  slowly 
to  the  front,  in  a  long-strided  walk,  came  a  gray 
horse  with  a  hatted  rider,  —  an  india-rubber  pon- 
cho covering  his  uniform.  I  ordered  him  back ; 
the  adjutant,  eager  for  the  enforcement  of  the 
order,  remonstrated  at  the  man's  disobedience; 
I  ordered  again,  but  without  result ;  the  adju- 
tant ejaculated,  "  Damn  him,  cut  him  down !  " 
I   drew   my  sabre  and   laid  its  flat  in  one  long, 

stinging  welt  across  that  black  poncho  :   " ! 

who  are  you  hitting1?"  Then  we  both  remem- 
bered that  Grierson  too  wore  a  hat;  and  I  ten- 
der him  here  my  public  acknowledgment  of  a 
good-nature  so  great  that  an  evening  reunion  in 


CAMPAIGNING   WITH  MAX.  137 


Memphis   over   a   dozen  of  wine  won  his   gener- 
ous silence. 

One  might  go  on  with  interminable  gossip 
over  incidents  of  camp  and  field  for  which  at 
this  late  day  only  scant  interest  is  felt;  but 
nothing  that  I  could  say  more  would  probably 
aid  my  purpose,  which  has  been  simply  by  a 
trifling  sketch  to  recall  the  jollity,  the  comfort, 
the  suffering,  and  the  misery  of  campaign  life, 
and  to  show  how  in  the  field  more  than  any- 
where else  one  learns  to  cherish  and  to  depend 
upon  a  faithful  and  honest  and  willing  comrade 
like  my  royal  old  Max. 


HOW    I    GOT    MY    OVERCOAT. 


(circumstantially  true.) 

HE  war  was  not  quite  over,  but  my 
regiment  was  old  enough  to  have  grown 
too  small  for  a  colonel,  and  I  sat,  the 
dismallest  of  all  men,  a  "  mustered-out "  officer, 
sated  with  such  good  things  as  a  suddenly  ar- 
rested income  had  allowed  me,  over  an  after- 
dinner  table  in  a  little  room  at  the  Athenaeum 
Club.  My  coffee  was  gone  to  its  dregs ;  the 
closing  day  was  shutting  down  gloomily  in  such 
a  weary  rain  as  only  a  New  York  back -yard 
ever  knows ;  and  I  was  wondering  what  was  to 
become  of  a  man  whom  four  years  of  cavalry 
service  had  estranged  from  eveiy  good  and  use- 
ful thing  in  life.  The  only  career  that  then 
seemed  worth  running  was  run  out  for  me ;  and, 
worst  of  all,  my  pay  had  been  finally  stopped. 


HOW  I  GOT  MY  OVERCOAT.  139 

The  world  was  before  me  for  a  choice,  but  I 
had  no  choice.  The  only  thing  I  could  do  was 
to  command  mounted  troops,  and  commanders 
of  mounted  troops  were  not  in  demand.  Ages 
ago  I  had  known  how  to  do  other  things,  but 
the  knowledge  had  gone  from  me,  and  was  not 
to  be  recalled  so  long  as  I  had  enough  money 
left  with  which  to  be  unhappy  in  idle  forebod- 
ing. I  had  not  laid  down  my  life  in  the  war, 
but  during  its  wonderful  four  years  I  had  laid 
down,  so  completely,  the  ways  of  life  of  a  sober 
and  industrious  citizen,  and  had  soaked  my  whole 
nature  so  full  of  the  subtile  ether  of  idleness 
and  vagabondism,  that  it  seemed  as  easy  and  as 
natural  to  become  the  Aladdin  I  might  have 
dreamed  myself  to  be  as  the  delver  I  had  really 
been.  With  a  heavy  heart,  then,  and  a  full 
stomach,  I  sat  in  a  half-disconsolate,  half-remi- 
niscent, not  wholly  unhappy  mood,  relapsing  with 
post  -  prandial  ease  into  that  befogged  intellec- 
tual condition  in  which  even  the  drizzle  against 
the  window-panes  can  confuse  itself  with  the 
patter  on   a  tent  roof;  and   the   charm  of  the 


140  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

old  wanderings  came  over  me  again,  filling  my 
table  with  the  old  comrades,  even  elevating  my 
cigar  to  a  brier-wood,  and  recalling  such  fellow- 
ship as  only  tent-life  ever  knows. 

Such  dreaming  is  always  interrupted,  else  it 
would  never  end ;  mine  was  disturbed  by  a  small 
card  on  a  small  salver,  held  meekly  across  the 
table  by  the  meekest  of  waiters. 

The  card  bore  the  name  "Adolf  zu  Dohna- 
Schlodien,"  and  a  count's  coronet,  —  a  count's 
coronet  and  "  zu  "  (a  touch  above  "  von  ")  !  I 
remembered  to  have  seen  a  letter  from  my  ad- 
jutant to  the  Prussian  Consul  in  Philadelphia, 
asking  him  to  obtain  information  about  a  hand- 
some young  musical  "  Graf  zu  "  something,  who 
was  creating  a  sensation  in  St.  Louis  society, 
and  the  "  zu "  seemed  to  indicate  this  as  the 
party  in  question;  he  had  spoken  of  him  as 
having  defective  front  teeth,  which  seemed  to  be 
pointing  to  the  "  color  and  distinguishing  marks," 
known  in  Herd  Book  pedigrees,  and  human  pass- 
ports, —  a  means  of  identification  I  resolved  to 
make   use  of;  for  my  experience  with   the  Ger- 


HOW  I  GOT  MY  OVERCOAT.  141 

man  nobility  in  America  had  been  rather  wide 
than  remunerative. 

The  "Herr  zu"  had  waited  in  the  hall,  and 
was  standing  under  the  full  light  of  the  lamp. 
He  was  very  tall,  very  slight,  and  very  young, 
apparently  not  more  than  twenty,  modestly 
dressed,  and  quiet  in  his  manner.  He  was  not 
strikingly  handsome,  though  very  well  looking. 
His  hands  were  the  most  perfect  I  ever  saw, 
and  the  ungloved  one  showed  careful  attention. 
There  was  no  defect  noticeable  in  his  front 
teeth.  He  bowed  slightly  and  handed  me  a  let- 
ter. It  was  from  Voisin,  my  former  adjutant, 
but  it  was  not  exactly  a  letter  of  introduction. 
At  least,  it  was  less  cordial  than  Voisin's  letters 
of  introduction  were  wont  to  be.  Yet  it  was 
kind.  Without  commending  the  Count  as  a 
bosom  friend,  he  still  said  he  was  much  inter- 
ested in  him,  had  reason  to  believe  in  him,  was 
sorry  for  him,  had  given  him  material  aid,  and 
was  very  desirous  that  he  should  pull  through 
some  pecuniary  troubles,  which  he  could  do  only 
by  enlisting  in  the  Regular  Army,  and  receiving 


142  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

his  bounty.  From  this  he  would  give  me  money 
to  release  his  baggage,  which  was  valuable,  from 
Bome  inconveniences  that  were  then  attending  it 
in  St.  Louis.  Would  I  get  him  enlisted?  He 
said  he  would  enlist,  and  would  prefer  to  be 
known  under  the  name  Adolph  Danforth.  The 
gentleman  himself  took  early  occasion  to  express 
this  preference. 

I  debated  a  little  what  to  do.  He  was  not 
introduced  as  a  friend,  only  as  a  person  in  need 
of  help;  yet  Voisin  believed  in  him,  and  he  had 
asked  a  service  that  he  would  not  have  asked  for 
an  unworthy  man.  I  engaged  him  in  conversa- 
tion and  got  him  to  smile.  It  was  a  very  frank 
smile,  but  it  displayed  a  singular  defect  far  up 
on  the  front  teeth.  This  decided  me.  He  was 
the  same  Graf  zu  whose  position  had  been  asked 
of  the  Prussian  Consul,  and  I  knew  he  had  learned 
that  the  Graf  zu  Dohna-Schlodien,  an  officer  in 
the  Gardecorps  Kiirassier,  was  of  the  highest 
nobility  and  of  a  family  of  great  wealth.  There 
was  evidently  no  technical  reason  why  the  poor 
fellow  should  not  be  received  cordially  and  well 


BOW  I  GOT  MY  OVERCOAT.  143 

treated.  So  we  went  back  to  the  smoking-room, 
and  with  fresh  coffee  and  cigars  opened  an  ac- 
quaintance which  resulted  not  altogether  un- 
eventfully. 

He  was  not  obtrusive.  His  story  was  not  forced 
upon  me ;  but  as  I  already  had  its  thread,  I  was 
able  to  draw  it  from  him  in  a  natural  way,  and 
he  told  it  very  frankly,  though  halting  a  little  at 
its  more  important  turnings,  as  if  wondering  how 
its  development  would  strike  me.  There  was  just 
enough  of  hesitancy  over  a  harrowing  tale  to  throw 
on  myself  the  responsibility  of  learning  it. 

He  had  been  brought  up  by  the  tenderest  of 
mothers  at  the  castle  of  Schlodien  (I  think  in 
Silesia),  had  early  joined  the  Cuirassiers  of  the 
Body  Guard,  had  fought  a  fatal  duel  in  which  he 
had  been  the  aggressor,  and  had  been  condemned 
to  the  Fortress  of  Spandau.  Only  his  mother's 
great  influence  (exercised  without  the  knowledge 
of  his  stern  and  much  older  father,  who  was  then 
on  his  distant  estates)  had  secured  for  him  an 
opportunity  to  escape.  He  had  come  directly  to 
America,  and  had  remained  near  Boston  until  he 


144  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

received  intimation  (again  the  result  of  his  moth- 
er's influence  with  Baron  Gerolt,  the  Prussian 
Minister  at  Washington)  that  his  return  under 
the  Extradition  Treaty  was  being  urged  at  the 
solicitation  of  the  family  of  his  fallen  antagonist. 
He  had  then  taken  refuge  in  a  remote  town  in 
South  Missouri,  where  he  amused  himself  with 
shooting.  His  mother  had  written  to  him  but 
once,  and  had  not  been  able  to  send  him  money. 
He  had  at  last  returned  to  St.  Louis,  where  he 
had  contracted  some  small  debts  which  Voisin 
and  another  kind  friend  had  assumed.  To  reim- 
burse them  and  to  gain  more  perfect  seclusion, 
he  had  resolved  to  enlist  in  the  Regular  Army. 
It  was  a  sad  conclusion  of  his  career,  but  as  an 
honorable  man  (and  a  pursued  one)  he  had  no 
choice  but  to  accept  it. 

It  was  the  old  story,  —  noblesse  oblige.  There 
was  but  one  way  out  of  a  sad  affair,  and  —  like  a 
very  Graf  zu  —  this  stripling,  who  had  been  born 
and  bred  to  a  better  fate,  faced  the  penalty  of 
his  misfortune  without  flinching.  I  tried  infinite 
suggestions,  but  nothing  else  offered  the  imme- 


HOW  I  GOT  MY  OVERCOAT.  145 

diate  money  which  alone  could  relieve  him  of 
debt  and  restore  him  his  wardrobe  and  the  por- 
traits of  his  mother  and  sister,  which  with  a  few 
well-worn  letters,  were  all  he  had  to  cheer  him  in 
his  exile.  We  sat  till  far  into  the  night  and  until 
my  kindest  sympathies  were  fully  aroused  by  the 
utter  and  almost  childlike  simplicity  and  frank- 
ness with  which  the  poor  boy  told  of  his  sorrows. 
I  had  been  taught  by  a  very  ample  experience  to 
look  with  much  caution  on  German  counts  and 
barons,  —  an  experience  that,  if  it  was  worth 
what  it  had  cost,  I  could  not  prize  too  highly; 
but  here  was  an  entirely  new  type,  a  combination 
of  the  gentlest  breeding  with  an  unsophistication 
that  argued  more  of  a  mother's  care  than  of  gar- 
rison influences,  and  an  utter  absence  of  the  devil- 
may-care  manner  that  army  life  in  Germany  had 
hitherto  seemed  to  give.  With  the  improvidence 
of  one  who  had  never  known  the  lack  of  money, 
he  had  lodged  himself  at  the  Everett  House ;  and 
as  I  left  him  at  its  door,  I  resolved  to"  lose  no 
time  in  getting  him  enlisted  and  stopping  an 
expense  that  would  only  add  to  his  troubles. 
7  J 


146  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

The  next  day  I  saw  the  official  who  had  charge 
of  the  making  up  of  the  city's  quota,  and  easily 
arranged  for  the  examination  of  my  candidate. 
Dohna  begged  me  to  secure  his  admission  to  a 
command  whose  officers  would  be  able  to  appre- 
ciate his  difficult  position,  and  a  weary  time  I  had 
of  it.  At  last  it  was  all  arranged  ;  he  had  passed, 
with  much  shock  to  his  sensibilities,  the  surgeon's 
examination,  and  had  been  enrolled  in  a  company 
of  Regular  Infantry,  whose  captain  (then  serving 
on  the  general  staff  of  the  department)  had  ac- 
quired a  sympathy  for  him  not  less  than  my  own. 
His  bounty  (over  seven  hundred  dollars)  he  put 
into  my  hands,  and  he  went  with  me  to  Adams's 
Express  office,  where  we  sent  more  than  half  the 
sum  to  St.  Louis,  —  the  full  amount  of  his  indebt- 
edness. One  specified  trunk  was  to  be  sent  to 
the  Everett  House,  and  the  rest  of  his  luggage  — 
which  Voisin  had  described  as  valuable  —  to  me. 
I  received  by  an  early  mail  the  receipt  of  the  St. 
Louis  express-office  for  it,  and  found  it  most  con- 
venient to  let  it  lie  for  the  present,  addressed  to 
me  personally,  at  the   office   in   New  York.     It 


HOW  I  GOT  MY  OVERCOAT.  147 


would  be  useless  to  Dohna  in  the  army,  and  I 
was  to  take  care  of  it  for  him. 

The  captain  of  the  company  in  which  he  was 
enlisted  secured  him  a  furlough  for  ten  days, 
and,  to  show  his  gratitude,  he  invited  us  both 
to  dine  with  him  at  the  Everett.  We  sat  down 
at  seven,  and  we  sat  long.  The  best  that  either 
cellar  or  kitchen  afforded  was  spread  before  us 
in  wasteful  profusion,  and  our  host,  temperate 
in  his  sipping,  but  eating  with  the  appetite  of 
youth,  seemed  only  to  regret  the  limit  of  our 
capacity.  As  we  walked  across  the  square,  filled 
and  with  the  kindest  emotions,  we  planned 
means  for  so  occupying  the  remaining  days  of 
the  furlough  as  to  allow  but  little  opportunity 
for  mone}r-spending.  His  company  was  at  Fort 
Trumbull,  and  after  he  joined  he  would  be  safe. 

The  next  day  being  Saturday,  I  took  him  to 
my  father's  house  in  the  country,  where  his  un- 
fortunate story  was  already  known,  and  where 
as  much  real  interest  was  felt  in  him  as  the 
good  people  of  Connecticut  ever  accord  to  a  du- 
ellist.     He   had   a   friend   living   farther  out  on 


148  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

the  New  Haven  road,  and  he  took  an  early 
train  to  see  her  (this  was  a  new  feature),  re- 
turning to  me  in  the  evening.  I  met  him  at 
the  depot.  He  wore  the  superb  uniform  over- 
coat of  the  Gardecorps  Kiirassier,  long,  flowing, 
and  rich,  with  a  broad,  scarlet-lined  fur  collar. 
It  was  caught  across  the  throat  with  a  scarlet 
snood,  and  hung  loosely  from  the  shoulders.  It 
made  his  six  feet  two  really  becoming.  At 
home  he  was  easy  but  very  quiet,  saying  little 
but  saying  it  very  well,  and  he  won  as  much 
confidence  as  the  stain  on  his  moral  character 
would  allow.  Like  most  of  his  class,  he  knew 
and  cared  absolutely  nothiug  for  what  interests 
the  New  England  mind,  and  he  would  early 
have  palled  on  our  taste  but  for  his  music. 
His  performance  was  skilful;  he  played  difficult 
music,  and  he  pla}Ted  it  very  well,  but  without 
vanity  or  apparent  consciousness.  When  not 
occupied  in  this  way,  and  when  not  addressed, 
he  neither  spoke  nor  read,  apparently  he  did 
not  even  think,  but  relapsed  into  a  sad  and 
somewhat  vacant  reticence.     But  for  our  knowl- 


HOW  I  GOT  MY  OVERCOAT.  149 


edge  of  his  misfortunes,  he  would  have  been  un- 
interesting.    On  Sunday  he  gave  me  a  new  con- 
fidence.    His  friend  up  the  road  was  an  Everett 
House   acquaintance,  made   when  he   first   came 
from  Boston.     She  was  an  angel !     She  knew  his 
sad   story,  and  she  had   given  him  her   Puritan 
heart.     In  the  trying  days  to  come  I  was  to  be 
the   link   that  should   bind  them  in  their   corre- 
spondence.    She  must  not  know  of  his  degraded 
position,  and  all  letters  were  to  pass  under  cover 
to    me.      Even   noblesse  did   not   hide   the   tears 
that  this  prospect  of  long  separation  wrung  from 
him,    and   he   poured   out   his    grief   with   most 
touching   unrestraint.     This  was  the  one  sorrow 
of    his    life    that    even    his    trained    equanimity 
could  not  conquer.      It   made   me  still  more  re- 
spect   his    simple,    honest    nature    and    his    un- 
feigned grief.     I  was  doubly  sorry  that  this  last 
trial   of  separated   love  should   be  added  to  his 
cup  of  bitterness.     In  our  long  Sunday  talk  he 
told  me  of  his  home,  and  showed  me  the  singu- 
larly  beautiful   photographs   of  his   mother   and 
sister,  and  —  quite  incidentally  —  one  of  himself 


150  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

in  the  full  uniform  of  his  regiment,  bearing  on 
its  back  the  imprint  of  a  Berlin  photographer. 
He  evinced  a  natural  curiosity  about  the  mode 
of  our  garrison  life,  and  I  prepared  him  as 
gently  as  I  could  for  a  decided  change  from  his 
former  customs.  It  was,  of  course,  depressing 
to  him,  but  he  bore  the  prospect  like  a  man, 
and  gave  it  no  importance  as  compared  with  his 
more  essential  downfall.  He  had  seen  enough 
of  our  troops  to  be  especially  uneasy  at  the 
prospect  of  an  ill-fitting  uniform.  In  the  mat- 
ter of  linen  he  was  well  provided,  but  he  was 
really  unhappy  over  the  thought  of  adapting  his 
long  and  easy  figure  to  a  clothing-contractor's 
idea  of  proportion.  So  it  was  arranged  that  he 
should  go  to  my  tailor  and  be  suitably  clad, 
according  to  regulation  of  course,  but  also  ac- 
cording to  measure.  He  proposed,  too,  to  leave 
his  overcoat  for  some  repairs  and  to  be  cared 
for  while  he  should  have  no  use  for  it.  I  gave 
the  tailor  assurances  of  prompt  payment. 

One  fine  morning  Dohna  came  to  my  room  in 
his  new  rig  and  bade  me  a  brave  good-by.     He 


HOW  I  GOT  MY  OVERCOAT.  151 

was  off  for  Fort  Trumbull.  I  felt  an  almost 
parental  sorrow  over  his  going,  and  had  much 
misgiving  as  to  his  ability  to  face  his  ill-bred 
soldier  comrades.  There  came  soon  after  a  let- 
ter to  say  that  he  was  well  treated  personally, 
only  the  rations  were  so  horrible;  pork  and  salt 
beef  and  beans  and  molasses.  He  could  not  eat 
such  things,  and  he  was  growing  faint  for  want 
of  food.  I  had  seen  such  dainty  appetites  cured 
too  often  to  have  any  fear  on  this  score,  and 
only  replied  in  general  terms  of  encouragement, 
and  asked  for  frequent  letters.  These  came. 
There  were  no  incidents  of  his  life  that  were 
not  described  almost  with  wonder,  for  a  noble 
officer  of  the  Gardecorps  of  the  king  of  Prussia 
knows  really  nothing  of  the  ways  of  life  of  the 
men  he  is  supposed  to  command.  Often  there 
were  thick  letters  for  the  fiancee,  and  answers 
to  these  (also  thick)  had  often  to  be  forwarded. 
I  felt  the  enthusiastic  glow  natural  to  one  who 
carries  alone  the  tender  secrets  of-  younger 
lovers,  and  was  not  altogether  unhappy  under 
the  subjective  romance  of  my  mediation. 


152  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


Sometimes  there  were  touching  tales  of 
trouble.  Once  he  had  been  detailed  to  the 
"police"  squad,  and  had  to  clean  spittoons  and 
do  other  menial  work.  This  was  a  touch  of 
reality  that  fairly  opened  his  eyes  to  his  abase- 
ment, and  he  wrote  much  more  sadly  than  ever 
before,  making  me  sad,  too,  to  think  how  pow- 
erless I  was  to  help  him  in  any  way.  A  few 
days  later  he  sent  a  wail  of  real  agony.  While 
he  had  been  out  on  drill,  some  scoundrel  had 
broken  into  his  satchel  and  had  stolen  all  his 
papers,  —  his  letters  from  his  mother,  her  pho- 
tograph, and  those  of  his  sister  and  his  sweet- 
heart, and  all  the  bundle  of  affectionate  epistles 
over  which  he  had  pored  again  and  again  in  his 
desolation.  The  loss  was  absolutely  heart-break- 
ing and  irreparable,  and  he  had  passed  hours 
sitting  on  the  rocks  at  the  shore,  pouring  bitter 
tears  into  the  Thames.  This  was  a  blow  to  me 
too.  I  knew  that  Dohna  was  of  a  simple  mind, 
and  utterly  without  resources  within  himself; 
but  he  was  also  of  a  simple  heart,  and  one 
could   only  grieve   over  this   last   blow   as   over 


SOW  I  GOT  MY  OVERCOAT.  153 

the  sorrows  of  a  helpless  little  child.  However, 
I  wrote  all  I  could  to  encourage  him,  and  was 
gratified,  though  a  little  surprised,  to  see  how 
soon  he  became  cheerful  again,  and  how  ear- 
nestly he  seemed  to  have  set  about  the  work 
of  becoming  a  really  good  soldier.  After  a  time 
the  captain  of  his  company  —  still  in  New  York 
and  maintaining  a  lively  interest  in  the  poor  fel- 
low's case  —  procured  an  order  for  him  to  go  to 
Annapolis  to  be  examined  for  promotion.  He 
was  already  a  sergeant,  and  a  pretty  good  one. 
He  stopped  in  New  York  a  few  days  on  his  way 
through  for  some  refitting,  —  again  at  my  tailor's. 
On  his  way  back  he  stopped  again  to  tell  of  his 
failure.  I  was  delicate  about  questioning  him 
too  closely,  but  I  learned  enough  to  suppose  that 
different  ideas  as  to  practical  education  are  en- 
tertained by  a  board  of  army  examiners  and  b}' 
a  fond  young  mother  in  the  remote  castle  of 
Schlodien ;  but  I  encouraged  him  to  believe  that 
a  little  more  study  would  enable  him  to  pass 
the  second  examination  that  had  been  promised 
him,  and  he  rejoined  his  company. 


154  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

In  the  general  mustering-out  Voisin  had  been 
set  free  and  had  joined  me  in  New  York,  and  had, 
naturally,  participated  in  all  my  interest  in  the 
quondam  Count.  He  gradually,  as  an  adjutant 
should,  assumed  the  correspondence,  which  was 
voluminous,  and  by  the  time  we  were  informed 
that  Dohna  was  detailed  for  recruiting  duty  in 
the  city,  neither  he  nor  I  was  glad  to  know  it. 
Something  more  than  a  feeling  of  regretful  sym- 
pathy is  necessary  to  the  enjoyment  of  frequent 
companionship,  and  we  both  felt  that  the  fact  of 
having  credit  with  a  tailor  was  a  dangerous  ele- 
ment in  the  possible  future  combinations.  How- 
ever, Dohna's  arrival  at  our  room  followed  close 
upon  the  announcement  of  the  order.  He  was 
still  simple  in  his  way  and  of  modest  deportment, 
but  he  seemed  to  have  accepted  his  new  life 
almost  too  entirely,  and  he  had  come  to  look  not 
very  much  out  of  place  among  his  comrades. 
Their  quarters  were  in  a  basement  in  Chambers 
Street,  back  of  the  City  Hall,  where  we  occasion- 
ally dropped  in  to  see  him.  After  a  while  he 
was  always  out  when  we  called,  and  once  when  I 


EOW  I  GOT  MY  OVERCOAT.  155 

stopped  to  give  him  a  foreign  letter,  sent  to  my 
care,  I  was  told  that  he  had  not  been  there  for 
a  week,  but  one  of  the  men  volunteered  to  find 
him.  He  came  that  night  to  the  club  for  his 
letter,  in  civilian's  dress,  and  appeared  much  as 
he  did  when  I  first  saw  him,  except  that  he  had 
two  beautiful  false  teeth,  in  the  place  of  the  de- 
fective ones.  I  gave  him  his  letter,  a  long  one 
from  Berlin,  from  his  father.  He  showed  Voisin 
the  postscript,  in  which  it  was  stated  that  a 
box  containing  a  breech-loading  shot-gun,  a  dozen 
shirts,  and  a  draft  for  five  hundred  thalers  would 
be  forwarded  by  the  Hamburg  line  to  my  care. 
On  the  strength  of  this  he  hoped  it  would  not 
inconvenience  us  to  advance  him  a  couple  of  hun- 
dred dollars.  It  was  thus  far  inconvenient  that 
we  were  obliged  to  decline,  which  gave  him  no 
offence,  and  he  invited  us  to  dine  with  him  the 
following  day  at  the  Everett  House. 

At  this  point,  in  view  of  the  extreme  youth 
and  inexperience  of  our  friend,  we  took  occasion 
to  read  him  a  short  homily  on  the  value  of 
economy,  and  to  urge  him  immediately  to  leave 


156  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

the  Everett,  return  to  his  barracks  in  Chambers 
Street,  and  as  he  valued  his  future  peace  of  mind 
to  avoid  running  in  debt;  mildly  hinting  that, 
if  found  in  the  public  streets  without  his  uni- 
form, he  would  be  very  likely  to  get  himself  into 
trouble.  He  begged  that  we  would  not  expose 
him,  and  promised  to  return  that  very  night. 
Then  for  some  time  we  lost  sight  of  him;  his 
captain  said  that,  so  far  as  he  knew,  he  was  at- 
tentive to  his  duty  with  the  recruiting  squad, 
and  he  certainly  kept  out  of  our  way.  The  box 
from  Germany  did  not  arrive.  No  more  letters 
came,  and  we  had  no  occasion  to  seek  him  out. 
It  was  evident  that  he  was  no  longer  unhappy, 
and  so  our  interest  in  him,  though  still  warm, 
remained  inactive. 

One  night  I  was  awakened,  quite  late,  by  Voi- 
sin,  sitting  on  the  side  of  my  bed,  big-eyed  and 
excited,  and  with  a  wonderful  story  to  tell.  He 
had  been,  at  the  request  of  the  counsel  of  the 
Prussian  Consul,  to  the  detectives'  rooms  at  police 
headquarters.     Here  he   had  been  questioned  as 


HOW  I  GOT  MY  OVERCOAT.  157 

to  his  knowledge  of  one  Adolph  Danforth,  alias 
Graf  zu  Dohna-Schlodien,  alias  Fritz  Stabenow, 
and  had  subsequently  had  an  interview  with  that 
interesting  youth  in  the  lock-up. 

The  glory  had  all  departed.  He  had  been  there 
forty-eight  hours,  was  unwashed,  uncombed,  stol- 
id, comfortable,  and  quite  at  home.  There  was 
no  remnant  left  of  the  simple  and  modest  de- 
meanor of  the  well-bred  aristocrat.  It  was  hard 
to  see  a  trace  of  likeness  to  the  Kiirassier  officer 
with  whose  photograph  we  were  familiar.  The 
obligations  of  noblesse  seemed  to  be  entirely  re- 
moved, and  there  was  nothing  left  but  plain, 
ignoble  Fritz  Stabenow.  An  examination  of  his 
pockets  developed  a  singular  folly.  He  had  kept 
every  scrap  of  paper  on  which  a  word  had  ever 
been  written  to  him.  Tailors'  bills,  love-letters, 
duns,  photographs  of  half  a  dozen  different  girls, 
all  were  huddled  together.  He  had  a  package  of 
the  Count  Dohna  cards  and  the  plate  from  which 
they  had  been  printed,  —  made  in  Boston  ;  a  let- 
ter of  credit  from  a  banking-house  in  Berlin  to 
its  New  York  correspondent  had  the  copperplate 


158  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

card  of  the  firm  on  the  paper,  but  the  paper  was 
ruled  as  a  German  banker's  paper  never  is,  and 
the  plate  from  which  the  card  had  been  printed 
(also  made  in  Boston)  was  in  the  envelope  with 
it.  A  letter  from  plain  father  Stabenow  enclosed 
photographs  of  still  plainer  mother  and  sister 
Stabenow,  which  were  a  sad  contrast  to  the  glory 
of  the  Countess  Dohna's  picture.  The  father's 
letter  was  full  of  kindly  reproof  and  affectionate 
regret.  "Ach  !  Fritz,  ich  hatte  das  von  Dir  nicht 
gedacht,"  —  "I  never  thought  that  of  you";  but 
it  was  forgiving  too,  and  promised  the  remittance, 
clothing,  and  gun  I  have  spoken  of  before.  The 
papers,  for  the  loss  of  which  such  tears  had  been 
shed  at  Fort  Trumbull,  were  all  there  in  their 
well-worn  companionship  with  a  soiled  paper- 
collar,  and  that  badge  of  dawning  civilization,  a 
tooth-brush. 

Here  were  also  two  photographs,  one  of  the 
statue  of  Frederick  the  Great  in  Berlin  on  the 
card  of  a  St.  Louis  photographer,  and  another 
of  himself  in  Prussian  uniform,  on  the  card  of 
a  Berlin  photographer.     The  pictures  had  been 


HOW  I  GOT  MY  OVERCOAT.  159 

"  lifted  "  and  changed  to  the  different  cards.  A 
more  careful  neglect  of  track-covering  was  never 
known.  The  evidence  of  all  his  deceptions  had 
been  studiously  preserved. 

Voisin  had  given  him  a  dollar  to  buy  some 
necessary  articles,  and  had  left  him  to  his  fate. 

The  disillusion  was  complete,  and  I  saw  that 
I  had  been  swindled  by  a  false  count  even  more 
completely  than  I  ever  had  been  by  real  barons, 
—  which  is  much  to  say. 

Voisin  had  gathered  from  the  Consul's  lawyer 
that  this  Stabenow,  a  valet  of  the  veritable  Count 
Dohna,  had  been  one  of  a  party  who  had  robbed 
him  and  committed  other  serious  crimes,  and  he 
had  fled  to  this  country,  with  his  master's  uniform, 
a  valuable  wardrobe,  and  costly  jewels.  He  had 
here  undertaken  to  personify  the  Count,  and  had 
had  on  the  whole  not  an  unhappy  time,  especially 
since  he  came  to  New  York  in  recruiting  service. 
He  had  finally  been  arrested  on  the  complaint  of 
a  lady,  one  of  the  many  whom  he  had  attempted 
to  blackmail,  by  threatening  exposure  through  let- 
ters they  had  written  him  in  the  kindest  spirit. 


160  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

Fortunately  this  one  had  had  the  good  sense  tc 
refer  the  matter  to  her  husband,  who  brought 
the  interesting  career  to  a  close.  He  had  ob- 
tained several  thousand  dollars  in  this  way  from 
different  persons,  and  had  contracted  considerable 
debts  in  all  directions.  The  Everett  House  was 
an  especial  sufferer. 

I  felt  that  my  claim  was  secured  by  the  lug- 
gage at  the  express-office,  and  I  called  for  it  the 
next  day.  The  gentlemanly  clerk  of  the  establish- 
ment blandly  showed  me  my  name,  neatly  written 
in  a  strange  Teutonic  hand,  to  a  receipt  for  the 
property.  Just  then  I  had  information  that  a 
box  addressed  to  my  care  was  lying  at  the  Hobo- 
ken  office  of  the  German  steamers.  Indiscreetly 
mentioning  this  fact  to  the  Prussian  Consul's  law- 
yer, I  was  informed  that  it  would  be  necessary 
to  take  the  box  in  evidence,  and  I  prudently 
refrained  from  making  further  efforts  for  its  re- 
covery. 

It  was  with  a  chastened  spirit  that  I  paid  a 
considerable  bill  at  my  tailor's  and  ordered  the 
overcoat  sent  to  my  address;    and   it  was  with 


HOW  I  GOT  MY  OVERCOAT.  161 

only  mitigated  satisfaction  that  I  heard  of  the 
sending  in  irons  to  his  company  in  California  of 
deserter  Stabenow. 

If  the  Herr  Lieutenant  Graf  zu  Dohna-Schlo- 
dien  of  the  Gardecorps  Kurassier  is  still  living, 
I  beg  to  inform  him  that  his  overcoat  —  the  only 
memento  of  a  grave  Schwindelei  —  is  now  a  com- 
fortable wrap  to  a  Rhode  Island  farmer,  who 
hopes  that  its  rightful  owner  is  as  snugly  clad 
in  his  winter  rides  about  Versailles. 


TWO  SCOUTS. 


N  the  desultory  and  sporadic  warfare  car- 
ried on  in  the  Southwest,  the  scout  — 
or  "skeout,"  according  to  the  dialect 
of  the  region  —  was  a  very  important  element 
of  our  organization,  and  it  is  amusing  now  to 
recall  the  variety  of  odd-fish  of  every  descrip- 
tion who  applied  for  the  remunerative  employ- 
ment that  this  branch  of  the  service  afforded. 

The  interest  of  our  life  at  Union  City  was  not 
a  little  enhanced  by  two  specimens  of  this  genus 
with  whom  we  had  much  to  do,  —  Pat  Dixon 
and  "The  Blind  Preacher." 

One  day  the  guard  brought  in  a  suspicious 
character  from  the  picket-line.  He  was  about 
twenty-five  years  old,  long,  lank,  and  dusky,  — 
a   sort   of  half-Indian,   half-Irish   looking   fellow, 


TWO  SCOUTS.  163 


with  uncombed  hair  and  an  over-prominent  quid 
of  tobacco.  He  rode  the  usual  "nag"  of  the 
country,  —  an  animal  with  more  blood  than  bone 
and  more  vice  than  beauty.  He  dismounted, 
passed  his  bridle  over  his  arm,  and  "squatted," 
—  the  usual  posture  of  the  country.  "  The 
Hun,"  the  professional  bully  of  all  our  culprits, 
took  this  creature  in  hand,  and  presently  came 
in  with  a  suggestion  that  I  had  better  see  him 
alone.  He  followed  me  cautiously  to  one  side, 
leading  his  horse  with  him,  and  squatted  again 
when  we  had  halted  at  a  safe  distance  from 
curious  ears. 

"  I  'm  Pat  Dixon.  I  live  down  Troy  way  on 
the  North  Fork.  Ye  see,  when  this  yer  muss 
fust  broke  out  I  did  n't  go  to  take  no  sides  in 
it.  But  Merryweather's  men  they  come  along  a 
little  'fore  sun-up,  last  month  was  a  year,  an' 
they  taken  the  only  nag  we  had  left.  I  'd  had 
him  hid  out  all  summer,  but  some  denied  skunk 
done  found  him  out.  I  heern  the  cusses  a  tramp- 
in'  roun'  an'  I  was  goin'  to  take  a  crack  at  'em 
for  'good  mornin','  but,  you  see,  I  knowed  if  I 


164  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

did  they  'd  just  burn  the  old  woman  out,  an'  she 
don't  git  along  but  porely,  anyhow,  so  I  did  n't. 
They  ccwscripted  the  old  man  the  year  afore,  an' 
he  hain't  been  heern  on  sence.  So  I  come  to  the 
conclushin  that  I  wa'  n't  agoin'  to  stan'  no  such 
treatmint  as  that  —  by  King !  an'  I  jest  took  to 
the  bresh,  an'  I  reckon  I  've  pestered  them  'uns 
right  smart.  I  ain't  agoin'  afoot  long  as  theys 
hosses  in  West  Tannisy,  —  you  bet !  I  was  agoin' 
to  jine  you  Yanks,  but  thinks  sez  I :  '  Old  Pat, 
you  kin  do  a  heap  better  in  the  bresh  nor  what 
you  kin  in  no  army,'  and  so  I  stuck  to  it.  0, 
now,  I  'm  squar' !  Frank  Moore  can  tell  you  all 
'bout  me ;  I  ain't  no  gum-game,  I  ain't.  If  you 
want  a  skeout,  I  'm  on  hand,  an'  I  don't  want 
no  pass,  I  kin  git  'roun'  in  this  kentry. 

"  Which  1  hoss  ?  Well,  't  ain't  much  of  a  nag, 
but  theys  more  on  'em  roun',  an'  if  this  'un  tuck- 
ers out  I  '11  git  somethin'  to  ride.  I  ain't  goin' 
afoot.  —  no,  mam  !  " 

This  was  very  much  the  sort  of  talk  "  Mr."  For- 
rest's emissaries  used  in  seeking  our  services  for 
his  purposes;  so,  partly  to  secure  ourselves  on 


TWO  SCOUTS.  165 


this  point,  and  partly  to  give  Dixon  a  good  char- 
acter should  he  go  out  from  our  camp  in  his 
professional  capacity,  he  was  sent  for  a  few  days 
to  the  guard-house,  until  Frank  Moore  should 
return  from  an  expedition.  I  believe  Frank 
knew  most  of  the  vagabonds  of  Obion  County, 
and  he  at  once  certified  that  this  was  no  other 
than  Pat  Dixon ;  that  his  story  was  true ;  and 
that,  while  his  controlling  motives  were  not  per- 
haps such  as  one  would  most  admire,  his  uncon- 
querable hatred  of  Merry  weather's  men  and  all 
their  confederates  might  be  relied  on  with  im- 
plicit confidence;  so  Pat  was  engaged  as  an  em- 
ploy^ of  our  Secret  Service  Department,  and  sent 
outside  the  lines  with  a  conspicuous  assurance,  as 
he  left  his  fellow-prisoners,  that  if  found  again 
within  our  reach  he  would  be  hanged  forthwith 
for  a  spy.  I  was  riding  on  the  road  he  took,  and 
he  gave  me  a  leering  wink  as  he  departed,  —  with 
instructions  to  watch  the  movements  of  all  gue- 
rilla bands  in  our  front,  and  to  bring  speedily  any 
information  he  might  obtain. 

During  the  remaining  months  of  our  stay  he 


1G6  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

was  almost  ubiquitous.  Every  scouting-party 
that  we  sent  out  in  any  direction,  though  en- 
tirely without  notice  to  him,  was  pretty  sure  to 
meet  him  with  important  information,  just  when 
information  was  most  needed. 

This  part  of  his  work  was  done  perfectly,  but 
he  seemed  to  regard  his  relation  with  us  as  a 
warrant  for  unending  private  iniquities.  After 
his  own  code  of  morals  he  was  a  strictly  virtuous 
man,  but  his  code  was  of  an  extremely  loose  and 
pliable  character.  It  is  probably  safe  to  say  that 
he  never  murdered  a  Union  man,  and  that,  unless 
sorely  tempted  by  the  difference  in  value  of  the 
animals,  he  never  forcibly  exchanged  horses  with 
a  Union  widow;  neither,  I  believe,  did  he  com- 
mit any  offence  against  a  known  Rebel  when 
there  was  a  probability  of  his  being  found  out 
and  caught ;  but  the  complaints  that  came  to 
us  of  the  manner  in  which  he  vented  his  pri- 
vate wrongs  and  carried  on  the  feuds  of  his 
ancestors  gave  us  frequent  annoyance.  Some- 
times it  seemed  necessary  to  recall  his  com- 
mission  and   declare    him    an   outlaw,    but   just 


TWO  SCOUTS.  167 


then  there  would  transpire  some  particularly  brill- 
iant achievement  that  showed  him  invaluable  for 
our  purposes. 

More  than  once,  when  our  patrols  reported  the 
immediate  presence  of  the  enemy,  Pat  would  turn 
up  with  the  assurance  that  it  was  only  so-and-so's 
"  band,"  who  had  come  into  the  neighborhood  on 
a  visiting  or  a  marauding  expedition,  but  with 
no  intention  of  putting  themselves  in  our  way; 
and  invariably  we  found  his  report  to  be  correct. 
Indeed,  so  frequently  did  this  happen  that  we 
became  almost  too  confident  in  his  assistance, 
and  when  an  excitable  picket  shot  at  a  donkey 
or  a  cow  in  the  night-time,  although  the  patrol 
of  the  guard  went  through  the  usual  routine  of 
investigation,  we  felt  that  there  could  be  no  se- 
rious attack  or  Dixon  would  have  notified  us. 

How  he  obtained  his  information  we  could  not 
guess,  and  his  own  account  of  the  matter  was 
never  satisfactory;  but  I  believe  that  no  consid- 
erable force  of  the  enemy  ever  crossed  the  Mem- 
phis and  Charleston  Railroad  (the  whole  State's 
width   to  the   south   of   us)   without   our  being 


168  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

speedily  notified;  and  through  this  means  we 
were  several  times  enabled  to  telegraph  to  Co- 
lumbus early  information  of  contemplated  raids, 
—  information  that  was  not  always  heeded,  as  the 
surprise  of  Paducah  (on  the  Ohio  River)  several 
days  after  our  warning  sufficiently  proved. 

One  ambition  of  this  worthy  man  had  to  remain 
unsatisfied.  How  little  this  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  we  at  the  headquarters  were  all  perfectly 
mounted,  modesty  makes  it  improper  to  state 
here;  but  in  our  frequent  meetings  as  we  rode 
outside  the  lines,  he  rarely  failed  to  tell  of  some 
particularly  fine  horse  belonging  to  some  partic- 
ularly bad  man  and  especially  virulent  Rebel, 
which  it  would  really  be  a  virtue  to  "confisti- 
cate."  The  worthy  fellow  was  not  satisfied  with 
his  own  conspicuous  appropriations;  he  would 
fain  have  mounted  our  regiments  on  the  weedy 
screws  which  the  Rebel  impressments  had  left 
for  the  horsing  of  the  crippled  region  of  Western 
Tennessee.  Possibly,  too,  he  may  have  had  some 
lurking  fear  that  there  was  a  suspicion  of  iniquity 
in  his  thefts,  and  longed  for  the  reassurance  of 


TWO  SCOUTS  169 


similar  conduct  on  the  part  of  true  men  like  our- 
selves. 

It  was,  of  course,  not  long  after  the  commence- 
ment of  this  active  campaign  against  the  rights 
of  ownership,  that  we  began  to  receive  assurances 
on  every  hand  that  unless  we  could  do  something 
to  repress  Pat  Dixon's  vagabondage  an  outraged 
people  would  take  the  law  into  their  own  hands, 
and  avenge  the  wrongs  he  had  inflicted.  With 
a  laudable  desire  to  prevent  unnecessary  blood- 
shed, I  told  him  one  day  of  the  state  of  feeling 
against  him,  urging  him  to  be  more  circumspect 
and  to  conduct  himself  like  a  decent  man,  else 
he  would  be  hanged  the  first  time  he  was  caught ; 
intimating,  too,  that  it  would  be  improper  for 
us  to  continue  to  employ  him  to  such  needless 
injury  to  an  inoffensive  people.  His  reply  was 
characteristic. 

"Inoffensive,  tvhich?  Mebbe  you  know  these 
people  an'  mebbe  you  don't.  I  do !  and  a  dern'- 
der  lot  of  unhung  cutthroats  an'  hoss-thieves  you 
can't  find  nowheres.  As  for  hangin',  you  need  n't 
give  yourself  no  worryment  'bout  that.  They  're 
8 


170  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

safe  enough  to  hang  me  if  they  ketch  me,  an' 
I  guess  I  sha'  n't  hang  no  higher  if  I  go  right  on 
my  own  gait.  If  you  don't  want  to  employ  me 
you  need  n't ;  theys  enough  corn  an'  bacon  in  th' 
Obion  bottom  to  keep  me  awhile  yet,  and  money 
ain't  no  'count  down  here ;  but,  by  King  !  if  I  kin 
git  a  chance  to  tell  you  anything  that  them  'uns 
don't  want  you  to  know,  you  bet  your  skin  I  '11 
do  it,  an'  you  kin  trust  me  every  time,  for  I  ain't 
goin'  to  lie, — not  to  your  side,  not  if  I  know  it. 
Why,  you  talk  to  me  about  inikities.  I  don't  want 
to  do  no  man  any  hurt ;  but  my  old  dad  he  was 
conscripted,  an'  me  an'  my  brother  Jake  had  to 
take  to  the  bresh  to  save  ourselves,  an'  then  Jake 
he  was  shot  in  cold  blood  right  afore  my  eyes, 
an'  I  made  up  my  mind  then  an'  there  that  I 
would  n't  give  no  quarter  to  the  whole  State  of 
West  Tannisy  till  this  war  was  over  an'  ther'  was 
some  stronger  hand  than  mine  to  do  jestis  an'  to 
furnish  revenge.  That 's  all  I  've  got  to  say  about 
it.  You  need  n't  give  yourself  no  oneasiness  'bout 
my  doin's,  I  '11  answer  for  the  hull  on  'em  ;  an' 
p'r'aps  the  last  thing  you  '11  hear  of  Pat  Dixon 


TWO  SCOUTS.  171 


will  be  that  he's  hangin'  to  a  tree  somewheres 
down  Troy  way.  I  know  I  'm  booked  for  that 
if  I  'm  ketched,  and  till  I  am  ketched  I  'm  goin' 
my  own  gait." 

We  had  become  too  much  accustomed  to  this 
state  of  feeling  among  the  scanty  Union  popu- 
lation of  the  Southwest  to  be  so  shocked  by  it 
as  we  ought  to  have  been,  and  it  was  not  with- 
out sympathy  with  Dixon's  wrongs  that  I  let 
him  go,  with  an  earnest  caution  that  he  should 
mend  his  ways,  if  only  for  his  own  sake. 

It  remains  only  to  say  that  he  did  go  his  own 
gait,  and  that  he  went  it  with  a  desperation  and 
an  elan  that  I  have  never  known  equalled  ;  and 
that,  months  later,  after  our  snug  quarters  at 
Union  City  had  been  turned  over  to  a  feeble  band 
of  home-guards,  word  came  that  they  had  been 
burned  to  the  ground,  and  that  Pat  Dixon,  be- 
trayed at  last  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  had 
been  hanged  in  the  woods  near  Troy.  We  could 
find  no  fault  with  the  retribution  that  had  over- 
taken him ;  for,  viewed  with  the  eyes  of  his  exe- 
cutioners, he  had  richly  merited  it :  but  we  had 


172  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

learned  to  like  him  for  his  frank  and  generous 
qualities,  and  to  make  full  allowance  for  the  de- 
gree to  which  his  rough,  barbaric  nature  had 
been  outraged  and  inflamed  by  the  wrongs  in- 
flicted on  his  family. 

A  returning  patrol  one  afternoon  led  to  the 
parade-ground  a  sorry  horse  drawing  an  open 
wagon  in  which  were  a  man  and  a  woman.  The 
woman  had  a  cold-blooded,  stolid  look,  and  her 
eyes  were  filled  with  the  overflowing  hatred  we 
so  often  inspired  among  her  sex  at  the  South. 
Her  husband  was  dressed  in  black,  and  wore  a 
rather  scrupulously  brushed  but  over-old  silk  hat. 
In  his  hand  was  a  ponderous  and  bulging  cotton 
umbrella. 

They  had  been  taken  "  under  suspicious  cir- 
cumstances" at  a  house  a  few  miles  outside  the 
lines,  —  the  suspicion  attaching  only  to  the  fact 
that  they  were  not  members  of  the  family  and 
seemed  to  have  no  particular  business  in  that 
region.  When  asked  for  an  explanation,  the  wo- 
man said  she  had  nothing  to  say  but  that  her 


TWO  SCOUTS.  173 


husband  was  a  blind  clergyman  intending  to  fulfil 
an  engagement  to  preach,  and  that  she  had  driven 
him,  as  was  her  habit.  He  said  nothing.  It  was 
a  rule  of  our  system  to  follow  Hoyle's  instruc- 
tions, and  "  when  in  doubt  to  take  the  trick "  : 
this  pair  were  remanded  to  the  guard-house. 

As  they  turned  away,  the  reverend  gentleman 
said,  in  a  feeble  voice,  that  if  he  could  see  me 
alone  later  in  the  evening,  when  he  had  recov- 
ered from  the  shock  of  his  capture,  I  might  be 
willing  to  talk  with  him.  In  the  evening  the 
Hun  repaired  to  the  dismantled  warehouse  where 
the  prisoners  were  lodged,  to  hold  conversation 
with  the  new-comers.  When  he  came  to  the 
clergyman  he  found  him  so  low  spoken  that 
their  talk  fell  almost  to  a  whisper,  but  it  was 
whispered  that  he  was  to  be  taken  alone,  and 
subsequent  disclosures  led  to  his  being  brought 
to  headquarters.  He  there  informed  me  that  he 
was  a  minister  of  the  Methodist  church,  Cana- 
dian by  birth  and  education,  but  married  to  a 
lady  of  that  region,  and  had  been  for  some  years 
engaged  there  in  his  capacity  as  a  circuit  preach- 


174  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

er.  He  was  quite  blind,  and  found  it  impossi- 
ble to  make  his  rounds  without  being  driven. 

His  sympathies  were  with  the  North,  and  he 
was  burning  to  make  himself  useful  in  the  only 
way  left  him  by  his  infirmity.  His  wife  was  of 
a  suspecting  disposition,  and  their  peaceful  con- 
sorting required  that  she  should  always  accom- 
pany him;  but,  unfortunately,  she  was  a  violent 
secessionist,  and  he  had  been  compelled,  in  the 
interest  of  the  peaceful  consorting  above  named, 
to  acknowledge  sympathy  with  her  views,  and  to 
join  her  in  her  revilings  of  the  Union  army. 

All  this  made  his  position  difficult,  yet  he 
believed  that,  if  the  opportunity  were  given  him, 
he  could  hide  his  intention  even  from  her,  and 
could  gather  for  us  much  useful  information. 

He  was  a  welcome  visitor  at  the  houses  of  the 
faithful,  far  and  near,  and  warmed  their  hearts 
with  frequent  and  feeling  exhortation,  as  he 
gathered  his  little  meetings  at  his  nightly  stop- 
ping-places. He  was  now  about  starting  for  the 
southern  circuit,  and  had  appointments  to  preach 
and  to  pray  at  every  town  between  us  and  Bolivar. 


TWO  SCOUTS.  175 


Evidently,  if  this  man  were  honest  in  his  in- 
tentions, he  could  be  of  great  service,  but  I 
suggested  the  difficulty  that  having  once  started 
for  an  appointed  round  he  could  not  return  to 
bring  us  any  information  he  might  receive.  To 
this  he  replied  that  his  wife  believed  him  to 
be  in  Forrest's  service,  and  that  he  could  at  any 
time  come  as  a  spy  into  our  lines. 

It  seemed  a  very  questionable  case,  but,  after 
consultation  with  Voisin  and  the  Hun,  it  was 
determined  to  give  him  a  trial,  to  prevent  his 
wife  from  seeing  more  than  was  necessary  of  our 
position,  and  to  believe  so  much  as  we  liked  of 
the  information  he  might  give  us.  The  condi- 
tions of  the  engagement  were  agreed  upon,  and 
after  a  severe  public  admonition,  and  threats  es- 
pecially appalling  to  his  wife,  he  was  sent  out- 
side the  lines,  with  hints  of  the  serious  conse- 
quences that  would  follow  his  second  capture. 

We  were  never  quite  sure  that  his  wife  was 
wrong  in  crediting  him  with  complicity  with 
Forrest;  but  the  worst  that  could  be  said  of 
him  (and  this  was  very  likely  true)  was  that  he 


176  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

was  pre-eminently  a  man  of  peace,  and  if  lie 
gave  information  to  both  sides,  it  was  always 
information  in  compliance  with  the  injunctions 
of  his  sacred  calling.  The  Rebel  forces  several 
times  crossed  into  Tennessee,  and  came  toward 
us  in  numbers  that  indicated  foul  intentions, 
but,  from  the  time  our  pious  friend  first  visited 
us,  they  invariably  withdrew  without  an  engage- 
ment. Frequently  small  expeditions  of  our  own 
forces  went  scouting  to  the  southward,  and  were 
checked  and  turned  back  by  the  reports  of  this 
benevolent  man. 

He  may  have  kept  us  from  the  successful  ful- 
filment of  some  bloody  intentions,  but  we  had 
occasion  to  know  from  other  sources  that  he 
sometimes  kept  small  detachments  of  our  troops 
from  falling  in  with  overpowering  numbers  of 
the  enemy.  Be  the  theory  what  it  may,  from 
November  until  February  there  was  no  conflict 
of  arms  in  all  the  counties  we  traversed,  and 
neither  side  advanced  to  within  deadly  range  of 
the  other. 

The   processes  of  this   emissary   were   hidden 


TWO  SCOUTS.  177 


and  curious.  He  was  employed  in  a  much  more 
regulated  manner  than  Dixon,  and  we  generally 
knew  his  whereabouts.  Every  interview  had  with 
him,  either  within  our  own  camp  or  when  we 
were  abroad,  had  to  be  so  skilfully  managed  that 
no  suspicion,  even  in  the  eyes  of  his  catlike  wife, 
should  attach  to  him.  He  never  came  into  our 
lines  except  as  an  unwilling  prisoner,  and  was 
never  sent  without  them  without  dire  admoni- 
tion as  to  the  consequences  of  his  return. 

On  one  occasion  Pat  Dixon  reported  that  a 
detachment  of  Forrest's  command,  about  three 
hundred  strong,  had  crossed  the  railroad  and 
was  moving  north  in  the  direction  of  our  camp. 
At  this  time  the  preacher  was  near  us,  and  I 
had  an  interview  with  him.  He  doubted  the 
report,  but  would  investigate.  I  told  him  we 
would  start  the  next  day,  with  five  hundred 
men,  in  the  direction  of  Trenton,  —  where  he 
was  to  hold  a  prayer-meeting  at  the  house  of 
one  of  Forrest's  captains.  The  meeting  was  held, 
and  after  it  was  over,  the  subject  of  the  advance 
was  talked  over  very  freely  by  the  officers  pres- 
8*  L 


178  WHIP  AND  SPUE. 

ent,  he  sitting  in  a  rapt  state  of  unconscious- 
ness—  his  thoughts  on  higher  things  —  at  the 
chimney-corner.  Pleading  an  early  appointment 
at  McKenzie's  Station  for  the  following  day,  he 
left  as  soon  as  the  moon  was  up,  and  drove  to 
the  house  of  a  friend  in  the  village.  His  wife 
supposed  that  he  was  coming  with  a  false  re- 
port to  lead  us  into  a  trap  laid  for  us. 

We  arrived  at  McKenzie's  at  one  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  after  a  detestably  cold,  hard  ride, 
and  took  up  our  quarters  in  a  half-finished  and 
half-furnished  house,  where  we  struggled  the 
whole  night  through  in  the  endeavor  to  get 
heat  out  of  a  fire  of  wet  dead-wood.  Early  in 
the  morning  the  Hun  started  out,  in  his  fiercest 
mood,  with  a  small  escort,  seeking  for  informa- 
tion and  hunting  up  suspicious  characters.  At 
breakfast-time  he  came  upon  a  large  family  com- 
fortably seated  at  table,  with  our  preacher  and 
his  wife  as  guests. 

He  was  asked  to  "  sit  by."  "  Thank  you ;  I 
have  come  for  more  serious  business.  Who  is 
at  the   head   of  this  house  1    I   should  like  to 


TWO  SCOUTS.  179 


see  you   alone,    sir."     The   trembling,   invalided 
paterfamilias  was  taken  into  an  adjoining  room, 
and  put   through  the  usual   course   of  questions 
as  to  his  age,  place  of  birth,  occupation,  condi- 
tion as  to  literacy,  the  number  of  negroes  owned, 
the  amount  of  land,  what  relatives  in  the  Rebel 
army,   to   what   extent  a   sympathizer  with   the 
Rebellion,  when  he  had  last  seen  any  Rebel  sol- 
diers  or  scouts   or  guerillas   or   suspicious  per- 
sons of  any  description,  and  so  on,  through  the 
tortuous  and  aggravating  list  that  only  a  lawyer 
could  invent.     Questions  and  answers  were  taken 
down   in   writing.     The    sterner    questions  were 
spoken  in  a  voice  audible  to   the  terror-stricken 
family    in   the   adjoining    room.     The    man,    of 
course,  communicated  nothing,  and  probably  knew 
nothing,  of  the  least  consequence.     He  was  sent 
to  a  third  room    and   kept   under  guard.     His 
case  disposed  of,  his  wife  was  examined  in  like 
manner,    and   then    the   other   members    of  the 
family.     Finally,  the  coast  being  clear,  our  emis- 
sary was  sent  for.     He  came  into  the  room  chuck- 
ling with   delight   over  this   skilful   exercise   of 


180  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

the  art  of  deceit,  in  which  he  was  himself  such 
an  adept,  and  laying  his  hand  on  the  Hun's 
arm,  said,  "  My  dear  fellow,  I  respect  you.  This 
has  been  the  most  brilliant  dodge  I  ever  knew, 
—  capital,  —  capital ! "  And  he  then  went  on  to 
recount  all  that  he  had  heard  the  evening  be- 
fore. A  large  detachment  of  Forrest's  command 
was  advancing  under  Faulkner's  leadership,  and 
they  doubtless  had  by  this  time  a  full  report 
of  our  position,  for  he  had  met  acquaintance  on 
the  road  who  had  reported  it  to  him.  If  we 
were  able  to  engage  a  body  of  three  thousand 
men  without  artillery,  we  might  find  them  that 
night  in  Trenton,  —  he  was  confident  that  that 
was  about  their  number. 

The  family  were  now  notified  that  they  had 
been  guilty  of  a  great  offence  in  harboring  a 
known  spy  of  the  enemy ;  but  they  insisted 
that  they  knew  him  only  as  a  devout  and  active 
minister,  and  had  no  suspicion,  nor  could  they 
believe,  that  he  had  the  least  knowledge  of  or 
interest  in  either  army.  With  due  warning  as 
to  the  consequences  of  a  repetition  of  their  crime, 


TWO  SCOUTS.  181 


they  were  allowed  to  return  to  their  breakfast, 
and  their  guest  was  brought  under  guard  to 
headquarters. 

Being  satisfied,  after  a  close  examination  of 
the  report,  that  it  would  be  imprudent  to  re- 
main so  far  from  our  camp,  which  could  be 
best  reached  from  Trenton  by  another  road,  we 
left  a  party  of  observation,  and  returned  to  Union 
City,  directing  our  scout  to  go  to  the  vicinity 
of  Trenton  and  bring  to  our  detachment  any 
information  he  might  obtain.  Twelve  hours  af- 
ter our  arrival  home,  the  detachment  returned 
with  the  news  that  Faulkner,  with  a  large  force, 
had  moved  toward  Mayfield,  Kentucky,  and  the 
event  proved  that  every  item  of  the  intelligence 
we  had  received  had  been  substantially  correct. 

In  this  manner  we  were  enabled  to  learn  pretty 
definitely  the  character  of  any  movement  of  the 
enemy  anywhere  in  Western  Tennessee,  and  so 
far  as  we  had  opportunity  to  investigate  the 
reports  they  generally  proved  to  be  essentially 
true.  These  two  scouts  were  worth  more  as  a 
source  of  information,  than  would  have  been  two 


182  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

regiments  of  cavalry  in  active  service.  Some- 
times our  Methodist  friend  acted  under  definite 
orders,  but  more  often  only  according  to  his 
own  judgment  of  what  was  necessary. 

A  few  days  before  Christmas  we  received  word 
that  Forrest  in  person  was  in  Jackson,  with  a 
large  force,  and  we  moved  against  him  with 
nearly  the  whole  body  of  our  troops,  under  the 
command  of  old  A.  J.  himself.  We  reached 
Jackson  at  night,  after  three  days'  hard  march- 
ing, only  to  find  that  Forrest's  army  had  left 
that  morning,  destroying  the  bridges  over  the 
swollen  rivers  and  making  organized  pursuit  im- 
possible. We  took  up  quarters  for  some  days 
in  the  town,  where  we  enjoyed  the  peculiarly 
lovely  climate  of  the  "sunny  South"  with  the 
thermometer  seven  degrees  below  zero,  six  inches 
of  snow  on  the  ground,  and  a  howling  wind 
blowing.  Our  own  mess  was  very  snugly  en- 
tertained at  the  house  of  a  magnate,  where  we 
had  an  opportunity  to  study  the  fitness  of  even 
the  best  Southern  architecture  for  an  Arctic  win- 
ter climate. 


TWO  SCOUTS.  183 


On  New  Year's  day,  as  we  were  sitting  at  a 
sumptuous  dinner,  and  mitigating  so  far  as  we 
could  the  annoyance  to  our  hosts  of  being  in- 
vaded by  a  rollicking  party  of  Northern  officers, 
Voisin,  who  had  been  called  out,  returned  to 
the  table  to  tell  me  that  a  man  and  a  woman 
would  like  to  see  me  in  my  room.  I  was  not 
prompt  to  respond,  and  asked  who  they  were. 
He  replied,  "0,  who  can  tell1?  I  suppose  some- 
body with  a  complaint  that  our  men  have  'taken 
some  hams  of  meat '  ["  meat "  being  the  Tennessee 
vulgate  for  hog  flesh  only],  or  something  of  that 
sort ;  the  man  seemed  to  have  something  the 
matter  with  his  eyes."  And  he  gave  me  a  large 
and  expressive  wink. 

Ensconced,  with  such  comfort  as  large  and 
rattling  windows  permitted,  before  our  blazing 
fire,  sat  our  serene  Methodist  friend  and  his 
sullen  wife.  Taking  me  aside,  he  told  me  that 
he  had  passed  the  previous  evening  at  a  private 
house  between  Jackson  and  Bolivar  in  religious 
exercises,  which  were  attended  by  Forrest  and 
officers  of   his  command.     After    the  devotions 


184  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


there  was  much  cheerful  and  unrestrained  talk 
as  to  the  plans  and  prospects  of  the  future  cam- 
paign, disclosing  the  fact  that  as  there  seemed 
no  chance  of  doing  efficient  service  in  Tennessee, 
the  whole  body  would  move  at  once  to  Central 
Mississippi  and  operate  in  connection  with  the 
army  in  Georgia.  This  report,  which  we  had 
no  reason  to  disbelieve,  decided  A.  J.  to  aban- 
don a  difficult  and  unpromising  pursuit,  and  to 
return  to  Union  City  and  Columbus.  We  found, 
on  our  return,  a  communication  from  the  head- 
quarters at  Memphis  to  the  effect  that  Forrest 
had  crossed  the  railroad  and  gone  far  south 
into  Mississippi. 

We  had  no  further  service  of  importance  or 
interest  in  this  region.  "Jackson's  Purchase" 
was  thenceforward  quite  free  from  any  consid- 
erable body  of  the  enemy ;  and  when  our  cler- 
gyman found,  a  few  weeks  later,  that  we  were  all 
ordered  to  the  south,  he  came  for  a  settlement 
of  his  accounts,  saying  that  he  had  been  able  to 
deceive  his  wife  only  up  to  the  time  of  our  inter- 
view at  Jackson,  and  as  his  life  was  no  longer 


TWO  SCOUTS.  185 


safe  in  the  country,  he  must  depart  for  the 
more  secure  region  of  his  former  home  in  Can- 
ada,—  where  let  us  hope  that  he  has  been  al- 
lowed to  answer  the  behests  of  his  sacred  voca- 
tion with  a  mind  single  to  his  pious  duties,  and 
that  domestic  suspicion  no  longer  clouds  his 
happy  hearthstone. 

Happily,  neither  A.  J.  nor  Forrest  himself 
had  further  occasion  for  his  peaceful  interven- 
tion, the  fortunate  absence  of  which  may  have 
had  to  do  with  the  notable  encounter  between 
these  two  generals  at  Tupelo. 


IN  THE  GLOAMING. 


HE  sun  had  gone,  and  above  the  dreamy 
blue  of  the  far-lying  woods,  the   early 
evening  had  hung  the  sky  with  mellow, 
summery,  twilight  loveliness. 

The  casements  of  the  old  house  at  Whitting- 
ton  glowed  ruddy  and  warm  through  their  mar- 
vellous clustering  ivy,  and  it  was  the  idlest 
luxury  to  hang  over  the  crumbling  road  -  wall, 
peopling  its  suggestive  chambers  with  the  spirits 
of  their  long-gone  tenants.  It  is  a  farm-house 
now,  and  there  is  no  available  record  to  tell  the 
stranger  the  story  of  its  more  glorious  days.  No 
rigid  history  hampers  the  fancy,  and  the  strolling 
lover  of  the  by-ways  and  roadsides  of  our  dear 
Mother  England  may  let  his  imagination  run  with 
flowing   rein,   sweeping   away  the   hayricks   and 


IN  THE  GLOAMING.  187 

marigold  beds,  and  calling  back  the  peacocks  and 
bagwigs  of  the  halcyon  days. 

Perhaps  for  the  last  time  in  my  life  I  was  tak- 
ing the  breath  of  an  English  twilight,  —  sweet- 
est to  those  whose  childhood  and  youth  have  fed 
on  the  rhyme  and  tale  the  green  old  land  has 
sent  to  her  world-wide  brood,  and  who  come,  in 
riper  life,  to  find  the  fancies  of  early  years  warm 
and  living  on  every  side,  in  hedge  and  field,  in 
cowslip  and  primrose,  in  nightingale  and  lark. 
The  thick-coming  impressions  such  musing  brings 
are  vague  and  dreamy,  so  that  there  seemed  a 
shade  of  unreality  in  the  quiet  voice  that  bade 
me  "  Good  evening,"  and  added,  "  Yes,  it  is  an 
engaging  old  house,  and  it  has  a  story  that  you 
may  be  glad  to  hear." 

It  was  not  from  perversity  that  I  turned  the 
subject,  but  no  tale  of  real  life  could  have  added 
interest  to  the  fancies  with  which  the  old  manse 
had  clad  itself  in  the  slowly  waning  day.  Way- 
side impressions  lose  their  charm  if  too  much 
considered,  and,  as  my  new  companion  was  walk- 
ing toward   Lichfield,  I  was   glad  to  turn  away 


188  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

and  join  him,  —  ending  a  long  day's  tramp  with 
the  slow  and  quiet  gait  that  his  age  compelled. 
There  was  the  least  shade  of  the  uncanny  in  his 
bearing,  and  his  speech  was  timorous  and  gentle. 
His  threadbare  and  seedy  look  betokened  a  na- 
tive unthrift,  but  there  was  an  undercurrent  of 
refinement  in  his  mien  and  in  his  manner,  and 
a  trusting  outlook  from  his  large  blue  eyes  that 
made  him  the  fittest  of  companions  for  a  summer 
evening's  walk  in  a  country  filled  with  the  min- 
gled flavor  of  history  and  romance. 

He  was  a  man  of  the  intensest  local  training. 
To  him  "the  County  of  the  City  of  Lichfield" 
was  of  more  consequence  than  all  Staffordshire 
besides,  and  far  more  than  all  England  and  all 
that  vague  entity  called  the  World.  Even  the 
County  of  the  City  of  Lichfield  was  large  for 
his  concentrated  attachment  :  he  knew  it  as 
one  must  know  a  small  town  in  which  he  has 
passed  the  whole  of  a  long  life ;  but  his  heart 
lay  within  the  cathedral  close,  and  the  cathe- 
dral close  lay  deep  within  his  heart,  —  deep  and 
warm,  with  its  history  and  its  traditions,  its  ro- 


IN  TEE  GLOAMING.  189 

mance  and  its  reality,  so  interlaced  that  he  had  long 
since  ceased  to  ask  what  was  real  and  what  unreal. 
All  was  unreal  in  the  sense  of  being  of  more  than 
worldly  consequence  in  his  estimation,  and  all  real 
as  a  part  of  the  training  of  his  whole  life. 

To  him  Lichfield  Cathedral  was  no  mere  pile  of 
sculptured  stone,  built  round  with  the  facts  of  re- 
corded history  ;  it  was  the  fairy  handiwork  of  times 
and  scenes  long  past,  its  walls  raised  by  the  hand 
of  pious  enthusiasm,  shattered  and  cemented  by 
the  strife  and  blood  of  the  civil  war,  hallowed  by 
the  returning  glory  of  the  Restoration,  blessed 
by  the  favor  of  royal  presence,  and  now  made 
admirable  in  his  daily  sight  by  the  dignity  and 
grace  of  those  holy  men  its  dean  and  chapter. 

As  it  was  the  cathedral  I  had  come  to  see, 
and  as  I  had  come  for  no  architect's  measure- 
ments, for  no  student's  lore,  only  to  bathe  in 
the  charmed  atmosphere  of  its  storied  past,  I 
had  fallen  upon  a  guide  after  my  own  heart,  and 
it  was  as  pleasant  as  it  was  easy  to  lend  full 
credence  to  all  he  so  honestly  believed  and  told. 

In  early  life  he  had  had  gentler  training,  but 


190  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

he  had  long  been  a  Poor  Brother  of  the  Hos- 
pital of  St.  John  the  Baptist  in  Lichfield,  and 
had,  for  many  years,  held,  by  seniority,  the  right 
of  presenting  a  rose,  on  St.  John's  nativity  day, 
to  the  heirs  of  William  Juvenis  (goldsmith),  who, 
by  grants  made  in  consideration  of  this  ceremony, 
had  secured  perennial  prayers  for  the  souls  of  his 
ancestors  and  a  fragrant  memory  for  his  own. 

Hedged  about  by  the  traditionary  customs 
and  quaint  observances  of  an  ancient  charitable 
foundation,  deadened  in  a  way,  if  you  please, 
by  the  aristocratic  pauperism  of  his  condition, 
my  gentle  companion  had  grown  to  his  present 
dreamy  estate. 

As  we  reached  Stow  Pool,  near  the  old  parish 
church  of  St.  Chad,  he  pointed  out  the  spring 
of  pure  water  where,  twelve  hundred  years  ago, 
this  future  Bishop  of  Lichfield  —  who  during 
his  hermit  life  supported  himself  on  the  milk 
of  a  doe  —  was  wont  to  pray  naked  in  the  water, 
standing  upon  the  stone  still  seen  at  the  bottom 
of  the  well,  and  where  St.  Ovin  heard  the  an- 
gels sing  as  his  good  soul  passed  away. 


IN  THE  GLOAMING.  191 

Then,  with  the  trusting  look  of  a  little  child, 
the  Poor  Brother  went  on  to  tell  of  the  virtues 
and  good  deeds  of  this  holy  life ;  —  how  even  the 
King  of  the  Mercians,  struck  with  remorse  for 
the  crimes  he  had  committed,  visited  the  saint 
in  person,  yielded  to  his  eloquent  persuasion,  be- 
came a  convert  to  the  true  faith,  and  banished 
all  idolatry  from  his  realm;  how  he  became  the 
head  of  the  church  of  Lichfield  and  laid  its 
strong  foundations  of  piety  and  faith ;  and  how 
his  virtues  so  outlived  him  that  his  very  tomb 
swallowed  the  ill-humors  of  diseased  minds  re- 
sorting to  its  serene  presence,  that  the  dust 
from  his  grave  healed  all  ills  of  man  and  beast, 
and  that  the  shrine  built  in  his  honor  after 
his  canonization  was  so  sought  by  numberless 
devotees  that  Lichfield  itself  began  thereupon 
to  increase  and  flourish. 

To  our  left,  as  he  ceased,  the  evening's  lin- 
gering glow  gilded  the  silent  pool,  where  lay 
the  unrippled  reflection  of  the  three*  spires  of 
the  cathedral,  hardly  more  unsubstantial  than 
the  fairy   silhouette  that  stood  clean-cut  against 


192  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

the  sky,  and  dividing  with  the  reality  the  rapt 
admiration  of  the  Poor  Brother  of  St.  John's. 

We  stood  by  the  water's  edge,  and  he  turned 
toward  the  phantom  spires  reversed  within  it, 
his  talk  wandering  back  to  the  days  of  the 
church's  troubles,  —  when  the  cathedral  close 
was  a  fortress,  with  strong  walls  and  well-filled 
moat ;  when  the  beautiful  west  gate,  which  only 
our  own  age  was  vile  enough  to  destroy,  kept 
stout  ward  against  the  outer  world,  and  pro- 
tected the  favored  community  who  formed  within 
the  walls  a  county  independent  of  Lichfield  and 
of  Staffordshire.  Within  the  sacred  pale  no  law 
had  force  save  that  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Court, 
and  then,  as  now,  none  could  there  be  taken  for 
debt  or  crime  save  on  the  wan-ant  of  the  dean 
and  chapter. 

He  knew  by  heart  the  long  list  of  bishops, 
and  would  gladly  have  held  me  to  hear  of  the 
good  deeds  of  Langton  and  Hackett.  He  was 
fairly  launched  in  his  favorite  enthusiasm,  and 
told  warmly  the  more  striking  features  of  the 
church's  history,  but  he  told  them  rapidly  lest 


IN  THE  GLOAMING.  193 

I  should  reach  the  storied  pile  with  less  than  a 
full  appreciation  of  its  traditional  interest. 

From  his  nervous  lips  I  learned  how  King 
Richard  II.  kept  Christmas  revels  here  with  a 
splendor  that  lavished  two  hundred  tuns  of 
wine,  and  roasted  two  thousand  oxen,  whose 
bones  are  still  found  in  Oxenbury  field  hard 
by;  how  Elizabeth  passed  three  whole  days  in 
the  close;  and  how  the  solidity  of  its  fortifica- 
tion, the  consummate  grace  and  finish  of  its 
architecture,  the  richness  of  its  sculpture,  and 
the  surpassing  beauty  and  magnificence  of  the 
nine  windows  of  its  lady  chapel  marked  it  as 
the  crowning  glory  of  the  Western  Church, 
until  the  dark  days  of  the  Revolution  lowered. 
Then  its  sore  trials  were  recounted,  and  I  learned 
of  the  fanatical  attack  of  Lord  Brooke,  "with 
his  horde  of  impious  Roundheads,"  made  by 
strange  fatality  on  St.  Chad's  day ;  of  the  shoot- 
ing of  Lord  Brooke  by  "  Dumb  Dyo^tt,"  who 
was  perched  in  the  steeple  with  a  fowling-piece 
that  now  hangs  over  the  fireplace  of  Colonel 
Dyott's  house ;  of  the  surrender  of  the  close 
9  M 


194  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

by  Lord  Chesterfield ;  of  the  sack  and  bout  that 
followed;  of  the  recapture  by  Prince  Rupert. 

He  told  of  the  foul  desecration  by  the  Round- 
heads, who  used  every  species  of  havoc,  plun- 
der, and  profanation,  —  pulling  down  the  sacred 
effigies  which  were  the  glory  of  the  western  front, 
hacking  to  pieces  the  curious  carvings  of  the 
choir,  mashing  the  noses  of  the  monumental 
statues,  destroying  the  valuable  evidences  and 
records  of  the  church  and  the  city,  shattering 
the  glass  of  the  costly  windows,  —  save  only 
that  of  the  marvellous  nine  of  the  lady  chapel, 
which  a  pious  care  was  said  to  have  removed 
to  a  place  of  safety.  They  kept  courts  of  guard 
in  the  cross  aisles,  broke  up  the  pavements,  and 
every  day  hunted  a  cat  with  hounds  through- 
out the  church,  delighting  in  the  echoes  from 
the  vaulted  roof;  they  wrapped  a  calf  in  linen, 
and  "  in  derision  and  scorn  of  the  sacrament  of 
baptism,"  sprinkled  it  at  the  font  and  gave  it  a 
name. 

How  the  King,  after  the  defeat  of  Naseby, 
came   from   Ashby-de-la-Zouche,  and  passed   tho 


IN  THE  GLOAMING.  195 

night  in  the  close,  —  how  Cromwell's  defaming 
crew  completed  the  work  of  demolition  and  dese- 
cration, and  smashed  the  old  bell  called  "  Jesus," 
with  its  legend  "  I  am  the  bell  of  Jesus,  and 
Edward  is  our  King;  Sir  Thomas  Hey  wood  first 
caused  me  to  ring,"  —  how,  finally,  the  chapter- 
house alone  had  a  roof  under  which  service 
might  be  said,  —  how  the  good  Hackett  on  the 
first  day  of  his  bishopric  set  his  own  servants  and 
his  own  coach-horses  at  work  removing  the  rub- 
bish, and  never  tired  until  in  eight  years'  time 
the  magnificence  of  the  cathedral  was  restored, 
except  for  the  forever  irreparable  loss  of  the 
decorations,  and  especially  of  the  lady  chapel 
windows,  which  all  the  cost  of  the  restoration 
would  not  have  sufficed  to  renew,  —  how  the 
church  was  reconsecrated  with  great  pomp  and 
solemnity,  —  all  this  he  told  me  in  detail,  and 
he  would  gladly  have  told  more,  for  this  Poor 
Brother  had  made  these  few  rich  historic  acres 
nearly  his  whole  world,  and  had  peopled  it  with 
all  who  throughout  the  long  ages  had  marred  it 
or  had  made  it.     To  have  given  "  two  good  trees  " 


196  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

for  the  rebuilding  of  the  church  was  a  title  to 
his  lasting  and  grateful  recognition. 

But  the  light  was  fast  waning,  and  the  cathe- 
dral must  be  seen  now  or  perhaps  never.  It  was 
already  past  the  hour  for  closing,  but  one  of  the 
vergers  had  formerly  been  a  Poor  Brother  of  St. 
John's,  and  my  companion  went  to  him  to  secure 
our  admission. 

I  stood  before  the  west  front  of  the  cathedral, 
which  was  then  bathed  in  the  lingering  light  of 
the  after-day,  its  great  central  window  gleaming  as 
though  the  altar  lamps  were  still  burning  behind 
it,  and  the  western  spires  almost  losing  them- 
selves in  the  sky.  The  quaint  effigies  that  fill  the 
niches  across  the  whole  facade  lost  their  grotesque- 
ness  in  the  dusk,  and  seemed  really  the  sacred 
sculptures  they  were  meant  to  be.  Fair  though 
this  rich  front  must  be  at  high  midday,  it  needs 
for  its  full  beauty  the  half-light  of  a  Northern 
evening.  As  seen  on  that  rarest  of  all  evenings,  it 
was  a  fit  introduction  to  the  subdued  glory  which 
greeted  us  in  the  dim  religious  light  to  which  we 
entered  as  the  great  central  door  closed  behind  us. 


IN   THE  GLOAMING.  197 

We  stood,  uncovered  and  reverent,  beneath  the 
vaulted  nave,  looking  down  the  long  curved  aisle, 
bordered  by  the  majesty  of  the  clustered  columns, 
through  the  light  illuminated  screen  of  the  choir, 
full  upon  the  sculptured  and  gem-set  alabaster 
reredos,  above  and  beyond  which  stood  the  famed 
group  of  windows  of  the  lady  chapel,  mellowed 
by  the  light  of  the  streaming  full  moon. 

Rich  in  the  blended  mosaic  of  the  floor,  in  the 
dimmed  canopy  overhead,  in  the  lightly  arched 
gallery  of  the  triforium,  in  the  mellow  cross-lights 
of  the  side  windows,  in  the  sombre  carvings  of 
the  choir,  and  above  all  in  the  marvellous  glass 
of  the  chapel,  it  was  the  very  perfection  of  a  wor- 
shipful church. 

It  was  too  nearly  dark  to  examine  the  details 
of  the  decoration,  and  we  wandered  down  the 
aisles,  remarking  here  and  there  the  bruised  stat- 
ues of  the  tombs,  and  halting  before  the  sleeping 
children  of  Chantrey  to  marvel  how  much  somno- 
lent repose  can  be  cut  in  chiselled  stone. 

11  But  come,"  said  the  gentle  Brother,  "  we  have 
only  light  enough  left  for  the  storied  glass  which 


198  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

alone  of  all  the  richness  of  the  old  church  out- 
lived its  desecration,  and,  as  by  a  miracle,  was 
preserved  to  tell  these  later  generations  of  the 
higher  art  our  forefathers'  sons  forgot." 

As  he  spoke,  we  stood  within  the  charmed  light 
of  the  nine  windows  of  the  apse,  —  windows  which 
have  perhaps  no  remaining  equals  in  the  world, 
and  before  which  one  can  only  bow  in  admiration 
and  regret  for  an  art  that  seems  forever  lost. 
Holding  me  fast  by  the  arm,  he  went  on  : — 

"  In  the  restoration  of  the  church,  the  spandrels 
of  the  old  windows  were  rebuilt,  and  the  frames 
were  set  with  plain  glass,  to  the  sad  defacement 
of  the  edifice ;  and  so  they  stood  for  nigh  two 
hundred  years,  no  art  being  equal  to  their  worthy 
replacement,  and  no  ancient  store  to  the  supply- 
ing of  so  large  a  demand. 

"  But  listen,  now,  how  the  hand  of  Heaven  shel- 
tered its  own,  and  how  true  servants  of  the  Church 
are  ever  guided  to  reclaim  its  lost  splendor. 

"A  few  years  ago,  a  canon  of  the  cathedral, 
travelling  in  Flanders,  wishing  to  contribute  to 
the  renewed  work  of  restoration,  visited  the  dis- 


IN  THE  GLOAMING.  199 

mantled  convent  of  Herkenrode  in  the  ancient 
bishopric  of  Liege.  Here  he  sought  among  the 
rubbish  of  the  lumber-room  for  wood-carvings 
which  might  be  used  in  the  rebuilding  of  the 
prebendal  stalls.  His  search  discovered  many- 
boxes  of  colored  glass,  the  origin  of  which  no 
one  knew,  and  whose  existence  even  had  been 
forgotten.  Thinking  to  embellish  some  of  the 
curious  triangular  windows  above  the  triforium, 
he  purchased  the  whole  store  for  two  hundred 
pounds  of  our  money,  and  presented  it  to  the  dean 
and  chapter  as  a  tribute  of  affectionate  devotion 
to  the  cathedral.  There  was  more  than  he  had 
supposed,  and  the  large  figures  of  some  of  the 
fragments  indicated  a  coherent  design. 

"This  chapel  was  fenced  off  from  the  aisles, 
and  here  the  canon's  wife  and  daughter,  devot- 
ing themselves  to  the  solution  of  the  puzzle, 
slowly  pieced  out  the  varying  connections.  They 
worked  patiently  for  weeks,  with  a  steadily  in- 
creasing excitement  of  success,  untir  [and  here 
his  grasp  grew  tremulous  and  close],  lying  col- 
lated on  this  pavement  where  we  stand,  only  a 


200  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


bit  wanting  here  and  there,  marking  the  exact 
sizes  of  the  varied  openings,  the  grand  old  Lich- 
field windows,  perfect  as  you  see  them  now  in 
this  softened  moonlight,  had  come  back  to  enrich 
forevermore  the  dear  old  church  to  whose  glory 
they  had  shone  in  the  bygone  centuries,  and  whose 
sore  trials  their  absence  had  so  long  recalled. 

"  Kind  stranger,"  said  he,  "  this  is  a  true  tale. 
Sceptics  have  questioned  it,  but  it  is  true  !  true  ! 
And  I  thank  Heaven  that  it  has  been  permitted 
to  me,  who  have  grown  old  in  the  love  of  this 
sacred  pile,  to  live  to  see,  in  this  crowning  act 
of  its  restoration,  the  higher  help  the  hand  of 
man  has  had  in  performing  its  holy  work." 

His  upturned  blue  eyes  were  moistened  with 
tears,  and  his  voice  trembled  with  emotion.  I 
led  him  gently  away  and  to  the  doorstep  of  the 
Hospital  of  St.  John  the  Baptist,  where  we  parted 
in  silence,  and  forever. 

Supping  at  the  Swan  Inn,  I  took  the  late  train 
for  Liverpool  and  home,  bringing  with  me  an  ideal 
Lichfield,  to  which  it  would  perhaps  have  been 
rash  to  hold  the  light  of  a  Lichfield  day. 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND. 

N  entering  the  Eegent  Hotel  at  Lea- 
mington the  first  object  that  attracts 
attention,  after  the  stuffy  old  porter 
who  hobbles  about  to  see  some  one  else  handle 
the  luggage,  is  a  small  frame,  over  the  smoking 
coal-fire,  which  contains  the  following  notice,  dec- 
orated with  an  old  cut  of  a  fox's  mask  :  — 


MERRY  &    CO.'S    HUNTING    APPOINTMENTS,    AND    GUIDE 
TO  THE  DIFFERENT  COVERTS. 


December  30,  1872. 


Warwickshire,  —at  10.45. 


Days. 

Meet  at 

Miles. 

To  go  thrmigh 

M. 

Goldicote  House. 

11. 

Wellerbourne  and  Loxley. 

Tu. 

Radway  Grange. 

12. 

Tachbrook  and  Kineton. 

W. 

Snitterfield. 

7. 

Warwick  and  Stratford  Road. 

Th. 

Red  Hill. 

13. 

Warwick  and  Snitterfield. 

F. 

Pebworth. 

9* 

16. 

Warwick  and  Stratford. 

202 


WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


North  Warwickshire, — at  11. 


Days.        Meet  at  Miles. 

M.     Solihull.  14. 

Tu.     Cubbington  Gate.  2. 

Th.     Stoneleigh  Abbey.  4. 

F.    Tile  Hill.  9. 


To  go  through 
Warwick  and  Hatton. 
Lillington. 

On  Kenilworth  Road. 
By  Kenilworth  Castle. 


Pytchley,  —  at  10.45. 


M.  Naseby. 

Tu.  Hazlebeach. 

W.  Dingley. 

F.  Cransley. 

S.  Swinford. 


26 .  Princethorpe  and  Rugby. 

31.  Dunchurch  and  Crick. 

33.  Rugby  and  Swinford. 

36.  Maidwell. 

19.  Princethorpe  and  Rugby. 


Atherstone,  —  at  11. 

M.  Coombe.  12.  Bubbenhall  and  Wolston. 

W.  Harrow  Inn  Gate.  20.  Coventry  and  Nuneaton. 

F.  Brinklow  Station.  12.  Bubbenhall  and  Wolston. 

S.  Corley.  14.  Stoneleigh  and  Coventry. 

Bicester,  —  at  10.45. 

M.  Fenny  Compton.  12.  Radford  and  Ladbrook. 

Tu.  Trafford  Bridge.  19.  Southam  and  Wornileighton. 

Th.  Hellidon.  14.  Southam  and  Priory  Marston. 

S.  Steeple  Claydon.  40.  Gaydon  and  Banbury. 

Twenty-two  meets  in  the  week,  all  within  easy 
reach,  by  road  or  rail.  Let  us  dine  and  decide. 
At  table  we  will  leave  the  menu  to  the  waiter; 
but  let  him  bring  for  consideration  during  the 
meal  the  list  of  meets.  "  Brinklow  Station,  twelve 
miles  " ;  that  seems  the  most  feasible  thing  in  the 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  203 

catalogue  for  the  morrow,  and  who  has  not  heard 
that  the  Atherstone  is  a  capital  pack  1  But  then 
the  Pytchley  is  even  better  known,  and  the  train 
reaches  Rugby  in  time  for  the  meet.  Let  the 
choice  be  decided  with  the  help  of  coffee  and 
cigars  and  possible  advice,  during  the  soothing 
digestive  half-hour  in  the  smoking-room.  Din- 
ner over,  wander  away  through  the  tortuous, 
dim  passage  that  leads  to  the  sombre  hall  where 
alone  in  English  inns  the  twin  crimes  of  billiards 
and  smoking  are  permitted,  and,  while  writhing 
under  the  furtive  glances  of  the  staid  and  middle- 
aged  East-Indian  who  evidently  knows  you  for 
an  American,  and  who  is  your  only  companion, 
decide,  with  your  nation's  ability  to  reach  conclu- 
sions without  premises,  whether  it  shall  be  Pytch- 
ley or  Atherstone.  Don't  ask  your  neighbor :  he 
is  an  Englishman,  and  have  we  not  been  told  that 
Englishmen  are  gruff,  reticent  men,  who  wear 
thick  shells,  and  whose  warm  hearts  can  be 
reached  only  with  the  knife  of  a  regular  intro- 
duction 1  However,  you  must  make  up  your 
mind   what   to    do,   and  you    need   help  which 


204  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

neither  the  waiter  nor  the  porter  can  give;  the 
"gentlemanly  clerk"  does  not  exist  in  England 
(thank  Heaven !)  and  you  have  not  yet  learned 
what  an  invaluable  mine  of  information  "Boots" 
is,  —  faithful,  useful,  helpful,  and  serviceable  to 
the  last  degree.  I  salute  him  with  gratitude  for 
all  he  has  done  to  make  life  in  English  hotels 
almost  easier  and  more  homelike  than  in  one's 
own  house.  It  is  safe  to  advise  all  travellers  to 
make  him  an  early  ally,  to  depend  on  him,  to 
use  him,  almost  to  abuse  him,  and,  finally,  on 
leaving,  to  "remember"  him.  Not  yet  having 
come  to  know  the  Boots,  I  determined  to  throw 
myself  on  the  tender  mercies  of  my  stern,  silent 
companion,  and  I  very  simply  stated  my  case. 
My  stern,  silent  companion  was  an  exception  to 
the  rule,  and  he  told  me  all  I  wanted  to  know 
(and  more  than  I  knew  I  needed  to  know)  with 
a  cordiality  and  frankness  not  always  to  be  found 
among  the  genial  smokers  of  our  own  hotels.  His 
voice  was  in  favor  of  the  Atherstone  as  being  the 
most  acceptable  thing  for  the  next  day. 

Ford,  the  veterinary  surgeon   of  Leamington, 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  205 

had,  on  several  occasions,  done  good  service  for 
friends  who  had  gone  before  me  over  the  hedges 
of  North  Warwickshire,  and  I  went  to  him  for 
advice  about  a  mount.  Here  I  found  that  I  had 
made  a  mistake  in  not  engaging  horses  in  advance. 
To  get  a  "  hunter  "  for  the  next  day  would  be  im- 
possible, but  he  would  do  what  he  could  for  a  few 
days  hence.  All  he  could  promise  for  the  morn- 
ing would  be  to  lend  me  a  horse  of  his  own,  a 
thoroughbred  mare,  not  up  to  my  weight,  but 
tough  and  wiry,  and  good  for  any  amount  of 
road-work.  He  kindly  volunteered  to  arrange 
for  our  going  by  the  first  train  to  Coventry,  only 
a  couple  of  miles  from  Brinklow  (it  turned  out 
to  be  nine  miles),  so  that  we  should  arrive  fresh 
on  the  ground.  At  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning 
he  came  to  my  room  to  say  that  everything  was 
arranged,  and  that  I  should  find  the  mare  at  the 
station  in  an  hour.  Swallowing  a  glass  of  milk 
as  a  stay-stomach,  —  my  usual  habit,  —  I  put  my- 
self, for  the  first  time  since  the  war  ended,  into 
breeches  and  boots,  and  drove  to  the  station.  On 
a  turn-out  stood  a  "horse-box,"  one  of  the  insti- 


206  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


tutions  of  England,  —  a  three-stabled  freight-car 
for  the  transportation  of  horses.     Paying  five  shil- 
lings for  a  horse-ticket  to  Coventry  (only  twice 
the  cost  of  my  own  seat),  I  saw  the  mare  snugly 
packed  into  one  of  the  narrow  stalls  and  made 
fast  for  the  journey.     Passing  through  a  beauti- 
ful farming  country,  we  came  in  due  time  to  the 
quaint  old  town  of  Coventry,  where  several  horse- 
boxes, coming  from  Birmingham  and  other  sta- 
tions, were  discharging  their  freight  of  well-bred 
hunters.     As  we  rode  from  this  station  another 
hard-shelled  Englishman  in  brown  top-boots  and 
spotless  white  leather  breeches  accosted  me  pleas- 
antly, reminding  me  that  we  had  come  from  Lon- 
don together  the  day  before,  and  asking,  as  he 
had  recognized  me  for  an  American,  if  he  could 
be  of  service  to  me. 

"Pray  how  did  you  know  that  I  am  from 
America  % " 

"Only  by  your  asking  if  you  should  change 
'cars'  at  Rugby.  An  Englishman  would  have 
said  'carriages.'" 

"Very  well;  I  am  glad  my  ear-mark  was  no 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  207 

greater.  Can  you  direct  me  to  a  hotel  where 
I  can  get  a  bite  before  I  go  on1?" 

"  Certainly  :  you  will  find  the  Angel  very  com- 
fortable; take  the  next  street  to  the  right,  and 
you  will  soon  reach  it.  Good  morning ;  it  is  nine 
miles  to  the  meet,  and  I  will  move  on  slowly. 
Command  me  if  I  can  help  you  when  you  come 
up." 

I  did  find  the  Angel  comfortable,  (as  what  Eng- 
lish inn  is  not?)  and  soon  fortified  myself  with 
cold  pheasant  and  sherry,  —  a  compact  and  little- 
burdensome  repast  to  ride  upon,  —  served  in  a 
cosey  old  coffee-room  by  the  neatest  and  most 
obliging  of  handmaidens. 

On  the  road  I  fell  in  with  straggling  groups  of 
horsemen,  in  red  coats  and  black  coats,  leather 
breeches  and  cords,  white  tops  and  black;  all 
neat  and  jaunty,  and  all  wearing  the  canonical 
stove-pipe  hat.  My  little  mare  was  brisk,  and  I 
had  no  hard  riding  to  save  her  for,  so  I  passed 
a  dozen  or  more  of  the  party,  getting  from  each 
one  some  form  or  other  of  pleasant  recognition, 
and  finally  from  a  handsome  young  fellow  on  a 


208  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

very  spicy  mount,  "Excuse  me,  are  you  going 
to  Brinklow1?    You  must  turn  to  the  right." 

Confound  these  Englishmen,  thought  I,  where 
is  their  traditional  coldness  and  reserve?  And  I 
reined  up  for  a  chat. 

My  companion  came  from  the  vicinity  of  Bir- 
mingham. Like  so  many  of  his  class,  he  devotes 
three  days  a  week  to  systematic  hunting,  and 
he  was  as  enthusiastic  as  an  American  boy  could 
have  been  in  telling  me  all  I  wanted  to  know 
about  the  sport.  To  get  hold  of  a  grown  man 
who  had  never  seen  a  foxhound  seemed  an  event 
for  him,  and  my  first  instructions  were  very  agree- 
ably taken.  Our  road  ran  past  the  beautiful  deer- 
stocked  park  of  Coombe  Abbey,  where  the  green 
grass  of  a  moist  December  and  the  thick  cluster- 
ing growth  of  all-embracing  ivy  carried  the  fresh 
hues  of  our  summer  over  the  wide  lawn  and  to 
the  very  tops  of  the  trees  about  the  grand  old 
house.  The  few  villages  on  our  way  were  neither 
interesting  nor  pleasant,  but  the  thatched  farm- 
houses and  cottages,  and  the  wonderful  ivy,  and 
the  charming  fields  and  hedges  were  all  that 
could  have  been  asked. 


VOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  209 

And  then  the  roadsides  !  and  the  stiles  and  the 
foot-paths,  and  the  look  of  age  and  the  richness 
of  the  well-kept  farms ;  and  again  and  every- 
where the  ivy  clinging  fast  to  each  naked  thing, 
and  clothing  it  with  luxuriant  beauty ! 

There  is  in  all  our  hearts  an  inherited  chord 
that  thrills  in  the  presence  of  this  dear  old  home 
of  our  race.  Not  this  spot  and  not  these  scenes, 
but  the  air,  the  tone,  the  spirit  of  it  all,  —  these 
are  as  familiar  to  our  instincts  as  water  to  the 
hen-brooded  duckling. 

Brinklow  Station  has  the  modern  hideousness 
and  newness  of  railroad  stations  everywhere  in 
country  neighborhoods,  and  it  was  pleasant  to 
leave  it  behind  and  follow  the  gay  crowd  down 
a  sloping  and  winding  road  into  the  real  coun- 
try again,  and  into  a  handsome  and  well-kept 
park,  beyond  which  there  stood  a  fine  old  house 
of  some  pretension,  and  well  set  about  with  ter- 
raced lawn  and  shrubbery,  —  a  charming  English 
country-seat. 

Here  my  eyes  were  greeted  with  the  glory  of 
my  first   "  meet,"  and   a  glory  it   was  indeed ! 

N 


210  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

Pictures  and  descriptions  had  suggested  it,  but 
they  had  only  suggested  it.  This  was  the  real- 
ity, and  it  far  exceeded  my  anticipation.  The 
grounds  were  fairly  alive  with  a  brilliant  com- 
pany of  men  and  women,  —  happy  and  hearty, 
and  just  gathered  for  the  day's  sport.  Red  coats, 
white  breeches,  and  top-boots  were  plenty,  and 
the  neat  holiday  air  of  the  whole  company  was 
refreshing  and  delightful.  Scattered  about  sin- 
gly and  in  groups,  mounted,  on  foot,  and  in  car- 
riages, were  a  couple  of  hundred  people  of  all 
ages  and  of  all  conditions.  Chatting  from  the 
saddle  and  over  carriage-doors,  lounging  up  and 
down  the  Drive,  or  looking  over  the  hounds,  the 
company  were  leisurely  awaiting  the  opening  of 
the  ball.  They  had  come  from  a  circuit  of  twenty 
miles  around,  and  they  appeared  to  be  mainly 
people  who  habitually  congregate  at  the  cover- 
side  throughout  the  hunting-season,  and  to  be 
generally  more  or  less  acquainted  with  each  other. 
The  element  of  coquetry  was  not  absent ;  but 
coquetry  is  apparently  not  a  natural  product  of 
the  English  soil,  and  that  sort  of  intercourse  was 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  211 

not  conspicuous.  The  same  number  of  handsome 
young  men  and  women  would  be  more  demon- 
strative at  a  similar  gathering  in  America.  A 
similar  gathering,  however,  would  not  be  possi- 
ble in  America.  We  have  no  occasion  on  which 
people  of  all  sorts  come  so  freely  and  so  natu- 
rally together,  interested  in  a  traditional  and 
national  sport,  which  is  alike  open  to  rich  and 
poor,  and  meeting,  not  for  the  single  occasion 
only,  but  several  times  a  week,  winter  after  win- 
ter, often  for  many  years.  Noblemen,  gentlemen, 
farmers,  manufacturers,  professional  men,  snobs, 
cads,  errand-boys,  —  everybody,  in  short,  who 
cared  to  come  seemed  to  have  the  right  to  come, 
and,  so  far  as  the  hunt  was  concerned,  seemed 
to  be  on  an  equal  footing.  Of  course  the  poorer 
element  was  comparatively  small,  and  mainly 
from  the  immediate  neighborhood.  The  habitues 
of  a  hunt  are  seldom  below  the  grade  of  well- 
to-do  farmers.  Servants  from  the  house  were 
distributing  refreshments,  riders  were  mounting 
their  hunters,  grooms  were  adjusting  saddle- 
girths,  too  fiery  animals  were  being  quieted,  and 


212  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

there  was  generally  an  air  of  preparation  about 
the  whole  assemblage. 

A  little  at  one  side,  kept  well  together  by  the 
huntsman  and  a  couple  of  whippers-in,  were  the 
hounds  (the  Atherstone  pack),  about  forty  of 
them,  or,  technically,  "  twenty  couples,"  strong- 
limbed,  large-eared,  party-colored,  wholesome- 
looking  fellows.  They  attracted  much  atten- 
tion and  elicited  frequent  commendation,  for  they 
were  said  to  be  the  very  finest  pack  in  England, 
—  as  was  also  each  of  the  three  other  packs  that 
I  saw.  To  the  unskilled  eye,  and  simply  viewed 
as  dogs,  they  were  not  remarkable ;  but  it  was  a 
case  in  which  the  judgment  of  an  unskilled  per- 
son could  have  no  value. 

The  horses  appealed  to  me  much  more  strong- 
ly. Certainly  I  had  never  before  seen  together 
the  same  number  of  the  same  average  excellence ; 
and  some  of  them  were  fit  to  drive  one  wild  with 
envy.  There  was,  on  the  whole,  less  of  the 
"  blood  "  look  than  would  be  expected  by  a  man 
who  had  got  his  ideas  of  the  hunting-field  from 
Leech's  drawings,  but  there  was  a  good  deal  of 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  213 

it,  nevertheless,  and  in  its  perfection  too  \  and 
where  it  was  wanting  there  was  plenty  of  bone 
to  make  up  for  it. 

At  eleven  the  hounds  were  led  out  to  the 
cover,  and  the  whole  field  followed  slowly  and 
irregularly  and  at  some  distance.  There  were 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  mounted  for  the 
hunt.  Perhaps  one  third  of  these  wore  scarlet 
coats,  white  breeches,  and  top-boots ;  another 
third  had  black  coats  and  some  of  them  black 
boots;  and  the  remainder  of  the  field  was  made 
up  of  half  a  dozen  ladies,  a  few  stout  old  gen- 
tlemen of  seventy  or  so  on  stout  old  cobs  of 
discreet  age,  little  boys  on  smart  ponies,  farmers 
and  tradesmen  and  their  clerks  mounted  on  what- 
ever they  could  get,  and  men  of  every  interme- 
diate grade,  and  with  all  sorts  of  horses.  A  cer- 
tain amount  of  riff-raff,  not  mounted  at  all,  but 
good  on  their  pins  and  ready  for  a  run,  were 
hanging  about  for  a  chance  to  pick  up  a  whip 
or  a  hat,  or  to  catch  a  horse,  or  brush  a  muddy 
coat,  or  turn  an  honest  shilling  in  any  way  that 
might  offer   in   the   chances  of  the   day.     Some 


214  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


of  these  fellows,  rigged  out  with  the  cast-off 
clothing  of  their  betters,  sported  red  coats,  black 
velvet  caps,  and  leather  leggings.  One  added  to 
all  this  gorgeousness  the  refinement  of  bare  feet. 
The  hounds  were  taken  into  the  cover,  a 
brambly,  tangled  wood  near  by,  which  had  prob- 
ably been  planted  and  made  a  little  wilderness 
to  serve  as  a  cover  for  foxes. 

They  soon  found  a  fox,  drove  him  to  the  open, 
and  followed  him  out  of  the  wood  with  a  whim- 
pering sort  of  cry  which  was  disappointing  after 
the  notion  that  the  "  full  ciy  "  of  the  books  had 
given,  and  which  is   heard  in  the  very  different 
fox-hunting  of  our  Southern  woods.     The  run  lay 
up  a  steepish  hill,  several  fields  wide  and  across 
an   open  country.     One   bold   rider    (not  a  light 
one),  mounted  on  a  staving  black  horse,  went  to 
the  right  of  the  cover,  and  made  a  splendid  leap 
up  hill,  over  a  stiff-looking  hedge,  and  landed  at 
the  tail   of  the   pack.     The  "  master  "  and   his 
assistants  had  got  away  with  the  hounds.     The 
rest  of  the  field  went  to  the  left,  waiting  their 
turns,  through  a  farm-gate.     Once  through,  some 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  215 

twenty  of  them  dashed  up  the  hill,  cleared  a 
clever  hedge,  and  kept  the  pack  in  sight.  The 
rest  took  an  easier  place,  where  a  farm  laborer  had 
pulled  away  the  stakes  by  which  a  gap  had  been 
filled.  Here  there  was  much  very  light  jumping, 
and  much  more  of  waiting  until  predecessors  had 
made  it  lighter.  In  the  mean  time  other  gaps 
were  found,  and  it  was  not  many  minutes  before 
all  were  through ;  but  during  these  minutes  the 
fox,  the  hounds,  and  the  harder  riding  men  were 
putting  a  wide  space  between  themselves  and  us, 
who  were  at  the  tail  of  the  field.  Yet  there 
were  some  in  the  party  who  did  not  look  like 
laggards,  and  whose  horses  were  good  enough 
for  any  work  such  a  country  could  give  them. 

Even  when  across  the  gap,  these  men  went 
with  the  rest  of  us,  by  gates  and  lanes,  toward 
a  point  to  which  it  was  thought  by  the  know- 
ing ones  that  the  fox  would  double,  —  and  the 
knowing  ones  were  right.  Gradually,  as  their 
judgment  indicated,  they  left  the  roads  and  took 
to  the  fields.  This  course  was  taken  by  three 
well-mounted  young  ladies.     I  followed  the  gate- 


216  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

openers  for  about  half  an  hour,  when,  coming 
out  on  a  high-road,  I  concluded  that,  with  seven- 
teen miles  to  ride  home,  it  was  only  just  to  my 
little  mare  to  give  the  thing  up  and  head  for 
Leamington.  The  hounds  were  far  away  on  my 
right  and  quite  out  of  sight. 

Having  come  to  look  on  and  learn,  I  had  prob- 
ably seen  and  heard  all  that  day  had  in  store 
for  me,  —  surely  enough  for  one's  first  day  at 
fox-hunting.  When  I  had  ridden  for  a  few  min- 
utes I  saw,  far  across  the  fields,  that  the  hounds 
had  turned  to  the  left  and  were  making  for  my 
road.  Pressing  forward,  I  came  up  in  time  to 
see  them  cross  to  the  front,  and  go  scurrying 
away  over  the  grass,  nosing  out  the  scent  as  they 
ran.  There  had  been  a  check,  and  "  the  field " 
was  well  up.  The  road  was  lower  than  the  fields, 
and  was  bordered  by  a  ditch  at  each  side.  From 
this  the  ground  rose  a  little,  and  on  each  bank 
stood  a  three-and-a-half-foot  thorn  hedge.  Nei- 
ther leap  was  difficult,  but  the  one  out  of  the 
road  was  not  easy.  Here  I  sat  and  saw  fully  a 
hundred  horsemen,  dressed  in  the  gay  colors  of 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  217 

the  hunting-field  and  mounted  as  men  rarely  are 
mounted  out  of  England,  all,  horses  as  well  as 
men,  eager  and  excited  in  the  chase,  flying  over 
hedge  and  ditch  into  the  carriage-way  and  over 
ditch  and  hedge  into  the  higher  field,  beyond  and 
away,  headlong  after  the  hounds,  every  man  for 
himself,  and  every  man  for  the  front,  and  on 
they  went  over  another  hedge,  and  out  of  sight. 
In  the  thick  of  the  flight  were  two  ladies,  rid- 
ing as  well  and  as  boldly  as  the  men,  and  two 
men  were  brushing  their  hats  in  the  road,  their 
empty  saddles  keeping  well  up  with  the  run. 
More  than  satisfied  with  this  climax  of  my  first 
day's  experience,  I  trotted  out  for  home.  The  re- 
sult of  the  run  I  never  heard,  and  I  leave  its 
description  where  I  lost  sight  of  it.  A  mile  far- 
ther on  I  did  see  a  fagged-looking  fox  making 
his  rapid  way  across  my  road  again,  and  sneak- 
ing off  under  the  hedge  toward  a  thicket,  and  I 
halted  to  listen  to  what  sounded  like  the  horn 
of  a  huntsman  at  check  over  the  hill  to  the 
left ;  but  possibly  the  conclusion  I  drew  was  not 
a  correct  one. 
10 


218  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

I  wish  that  words  could  give  an  idea  of  the 
life  and  action  of  the  headlong  flight  I  had  just 
seen ;  but  the  inadequacy  of  all  I  had  read  to 
convey  it  to  me  makes  it  seem  useless  to  try. 
Photography  and  description  may,  in  a  measure, 
supply  the  place  of  travel ;  but  he  who  would 
realize  the  most  thrilling  intensity  of  eager  horse- 
manship must  stand  in  a  hedge-bound  English 
lane,  and  see  with  his  own  eyes,  and  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life,  a  hundred  gayly  dressed 
and  splendidly  mounted  fox-hunters  flashing  at 
full  speed  across  his  path  ;  and  it  is  worth  the 
while  to  see. 

Rain  never  fell  on  a  more  lovely  country  than 
that  part  of  Warwickshire  through  which  my  wet 
way  lay.  For  ten  miles  of  the  seventeen  it 
rained,  gently  as  it  rains  with  us  in  April ;  nor 
is  our  grass  more  green  in  April  than  this  was 
in  Christmas  week.  The  all-prevailing  ivy  was 
filled  with  berries,  and  the  laurustinus  was  al- 
ready in  bloom. 

No  born  Englishman  could  have  cared  less  for 
the  soaking  rain;  and,  wet  to  the  skin,  tired  to 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  219 

the  bone,  and  stiff  to  the  marrow,  I  have  rarely 
been  more  exuberant  than  when  I  gradually  re- 
gained the  use  of  my  legs  in  the  half-mile  walk 
to  the  hotel,  resolving  that  not  even  the  glories 
of  American  citizenship  should  ever  keep  me 
away  from  England  in  winter  were  I  only  able 
to  afford  the  luxury  of  regular  hunting.  But 
the  exuberance  was  moral  rather  than  physical. 
I  had  not  been  so  tired  for  years,  —  stiff  as  an 
old  horse,  after  over  thirty  miles  of  really  hard 
riding  (the  last  seventeen  miles  in  two  hours). 
The  cure  was  a  hot  bath  and  a  dish  of  hot  soup, 
followed  by  a  log-like  sleep  of  two  hours  on  a  sofa 
before  a  blazing  hot  fire,  a  sharp  half-hour's  walk, 
a  very  plain  dinner,  and  a  couple  of  hours'  chat 
with  my  interested  East-Indiaman  in  the  smok- 
ing-room :  the  cure  was  complete ;  and  all  that 
was  left  of  the  day's  sport  was  its  brilliant  rec- 
ollection. 

My  second  day  was  near  Stratford-on-Avon,  — 
on  Ay-von,  the  misguided  English  call  it.  The 
meet  was  to  be  at  Goldicote  House,  one  of  the 


220  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 


"fixtures"   of  the   Warwickshire   Hunt.      There 
were   about  a  hundred   persons,  including  a  few 
ladies,    and   one   little   bareheaded    "  blue  -coat " 
school-boy    (from   Charles    Lamb's    school),    who, 
with  his  folded   umbrella,  long  skirt,  low  shoes, 
and  yellow  hose,  was  in  for  as  much  sport  as  his 
Christmas  holiday  could  give  him.     As  a  further 
penalty  for  want  of  forethought,  I  was  reduced 
to   riding   a  friend's   coach-horse.     However,  the 
reduction   was   not   great,  for   whether  by  early 
instruction  or  by  inheritance,  he  was  more  than 
half  a  hunter,  and  gave  me  a  capital  look  at  the 
whole  day's  chase ;   while   his  owner,  on  a  most 
charming   black  blood  mare,   being   out   of  con- 
dition  for   hard   riding,    kindly   applied    himself 
to  urging  me  to  severer  work  than  one  likes  to 
do  with  a  borrowed  horse.     He  introduced  me  to 
a  venerable  old  gentleman  in  a  time-and-weather- 
stained  red  coat,  velvet  cap,  and  well-used  nether 
gear,  mounted   on   a  knowing-looking   old   gray, 
and   attended   by  his  granddaughter.     He  could 
not   have   been   less  than  eighty  years  old,  and 
his  days  of  hard  riding  were  over;  but  constant 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  221 

hunting  exercise  every  winter  for  over  sixty  years 
had  protected  him  wonderfully  well  against  the 
ravages  of  time,  and  it  is  rare  to  see  an  Ameri- 
can of  sixty  so  hale  and  hearty,  and  so  cheerful 
and  jolly.  I  was  told  that  if  I  would  take  him 
for  my  leader,  I  would  see  more  of  the  run  than 
I  could  in  any  other  way  with  such  a  mount  as 
I  had.  He  seemed  to  know  the  habits  of  the 
foxes  of  South  Warwickshire  as  thoroughly  as  he 
did  every  foot-path  and  gate  of  the  country,  and 
he  led  us  by  cross-cuts  to  the  various  points  to 
which  Reynard  circled,  so  that  we  often  had  the 
whole  field  in  sight.  It  was  not  an  especially 
interesting  day,  and  the  fox  got  away  at  last, 
among  a  tangle  of  railway  lines  that  blocked  our 
passage.  My  old  mentor,  who  had  given  me 
much  valuable  instruction  in  the  details  of  hunt- 
ing, was  vastly  disgusted  at  the  result,  and  broke 
out  with,  "  Ah !  it 's  all  up  with  old  England,  I 
doubt  ;  these  confounded  railways  have  killed 
sport.  There 's  no  hunting  to  be  had  any  lon- 
ger, for  their  infernal  cutting  up  the  country  in 
this  way.     I  Ve  hunted  with  these  hounds  under 


222  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

fifteen  different  masters,  but  I  've  about  done, 
and  I  sha'  n't  lose  much,  —  it 's  all  up.  How- 
ever, I  suppose  we  could  never  pay  the  interest 
on  the  national  debt  without  the  railways ;  but 
it 's  all  up  with  hunting."  At  that,  he  called 
away  the  young  lady,  bade  me  a  melancholy 
"good-by,"  and  rode  half  sadly  home.  I  gal- 
loped back  to  Stratford  with  nry  handsome  old 
host,  —  a  little  more  knowing  in  the  ways  of  the 
field,  but  without  yet  having  had  a  fair  taste  of 
the  sport. 

Seven  miles  from  Peterborough,  in  the  dismal 
little  village  of  Wansford,  near  the  borders  of 
Northamptonshire  and  Huntingdonshire,  is,  per- 
haps, the  only  remaining  old  posting-inn  in  Eng- 
land that  is  kept  up  in  the  unchanged  style  of 
the  ante-railroad  days.  The  post-horses  are  gone, 
but  the  posting-stables  are  filled  with  hunters ; 
the  travelling  public  have  fled  to  the  swifter 
lines,  and  Wansford  is  forever  deserted  of  them ; 
but  the  old  Haycock  keeps  up  its  old  cheer,  and 
Tom  Percival,  who  boasts  that  he   has   had  the 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  223 

Princess  Victoria  for  a  guest,  and  has  slept  five 
dukes  in  one  night,  has  little  occasion  to  com- 
plain of  neglect.  The  good  wine  that  needs  no 
bush  still  makes  his  cellar  known,  and  no  one 
should  criticise  English  cooking  until  he  has 
dined  once  at  the  Haycock.  Nowhere  is  the 
inn-maid  of  whom  we  have  read  so  much  to  be 
found  in  such  simple,  tidy,  and  courtesying  per- 
fection ;  and  nowhere,  in  short,  can  one  find  so 
completely  the  solid  comfort  of  hostelry  life. 
Half  old  farm-house  and  half  wayside-inn ;  with 
a  marvellous  larder,  through  whose  glass-closed 
side  the  guest  sees  visions  of  joints  and  jams 
and  pastry  in  lavish  profusion ;  backed  by  a 
stable-yard  where  boys  are  always  exercising 
good  horses ;  and  flanked  by  a  yardful  of  quaint 
clipped  yews,  —  the  old  house  at  Wansford  (in 
spite  of  its  dull-looking  road  front)  is  worth  a 
visit  from  those  who  would  get  out  of  the  sight 
and  sound  of  steam,  and  see  the  old,  old  coun- 
try life  of  England.  The  visitor  is  .not  num- 
bered and  billeted  and  pigeon-holed,  as  in  the 
modern  hotel ;  but  the   old  fiction  of  host   and 


224  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

guest  is  well  kept  up.  Your  coming  should  be 
announced  in  advance ;  and  you  are  received  as 
in  some  sort  a  member  of  the  family,  whose 
ways  are  made  to  conform  more  or  less  to  the 
wishes  of  yourself  and  your  convives,  mainly 
young  swells  from  London,  who  are  few,  and  who 
are  there,  as  you  are,  not  for  business,  but  for 
rest,  good  living,  and  regular  sport.  Three  packs 
of  hounds  are  within  reach ;  and  on  the  days 
when  none  of  the  meets  is  near,  there  is  always 
the  "  larking "  —  the  training  of  young  horses 
—  to  supply  a  good  substitute,  so  far  as  the 
riding  goes.  One  who  cares  for  hunting  pure 
and  simple,  rather  than  for  the  gayer  life  of 
Leamington  and  Cheltenham,  cannot  do  better 
than  to  make  the  season,  or  a  part  of  it,  at  the 
Haycock,  with  regularly  engaged  horses  for  as 
many  days  in  the  week  as  he  may  choose  to 
ride.  It  costs,  —  but  it  pays.  One  is  none  the 
less  welcome  among  the  guests  for  being  an 
American. 

I  there  had  a  day  with  the  George  Fitz  William 
hounds.     Not  being,  as  yet,  quite  at  home  in  the 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  225 

field,  I  took  a  wise  old  horse,  "  Cock  Robin,"  who 
was  well  up  to  my  weight,  and  who,  as  Percival 
told  me,  would  teach  me  more  than  I  could  teach 
him.  He  was  sent  on  early  with  the  other  hunt- 
ers, and  I  took  a  "  hack "  to  ride  to  cover.  We 
were  a  party  of  four,  and  we  went  through  the 
fields  and  the  lawns  and  the  rain,  to  where  the 
meet  was  fixed  for  eleven  o'clock,  at  Barnwell 
Castle,  a  fine  old  Norman  ruin,  —  square  and  low, 
with  four  large  corner  towers  draped  in  magnifi- 
cent ivy.  It  was  a  dreary  morning,  and  not  more 
than  sixty  were  out ;  but  among  these,  as  always, 
there  were  ladies,  and  there  was  more  than  the 
usual  proportion  of  fine  horses.  One  cover  was 
drawn  blank,  and  we  moved  to  another,  where 
a  fox  was  found,  and  whence  the  run  was  sharp 
and  too  straight  for  a  prudent  novice  to  see  very 
much  of  it ;  and  it  was  some  minutes  before  Cock 
Robin  and  his  rider  came  up  with  the  hounds, 
who  had  come  to  a  check  in  a  large  wood. 
Throughout  the  day  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
waiting  about  different  covers,  between  which 
the  fox  ran  back  and  forth.  Finally  he  broke 
10*  o 


226  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

away  for  a  long,  quick  burst  over  the  fields, 
which  lay  to  the  left  of  a  farm-road  down  which 
we  were  riding,  and  which  was  flanked  by  a  high 
and  solid-looking  hedge.  Near  the  head  of  the 
party  was  a  well-mounted  blonde  of  seventeen, 
who  had  hitherto  seemed  to  avoid  the  open  coun- 
try and  to  keep  prudently  near  to  her  mother  and 
her  groom.  The  sight  of  the  splendid  run,  fast 
leaving  us  behind,  was  too  much  for  her,  and  she 
turned  straight  for  the  hedge,  clearing  it  with  a 
grander  leap  than  I  had  seen  taken  that  day, 
and  flying  on  over  hedges  and  ditches  in  the 
direct  wake  of  the  hounds.  A  young  German 
who  followed  her  said,  as  we  rode  back  to  the 
Haycock,  "It  is  vort  to  come  from  America  or 

from  Owstria  to  see  zat  lofely  Lady go  over 

ze  cowntry  " ;  and  it  was. 

Luck  often  favors  the  timid;  Cock  Robin  and 
I  were  quite  alone  —  he  disgusted,  and  I  half 
ashamed  with  my  prudence  —  when  the  fox,  who 
had  found  straight  running  of  no  avail,  came 
swerving  to  the  right  over  the  crest  of  a  distant 
hill,  closely  followed  by  the  hounds,  and,  in  splen- 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  227 

did  style,  by  the  first  flight  of  the  field.  Soon 
he  crossed  a  brook  which  was  fenced  in  with 
rails,  and  the  horsemen  all  had  to  make  a  long 
detour,  so  that  I,  who  had  been  last,  now  became 
first.  I  had  the  fox  and  the  hounds  all  to  my- 
self; my  horse  was  fresh,  and  the  way  was  easy. 
My  monopoly  lasted  only  a  moment,  but  it  was 
not  a  moment  of  tranquillity.  Finding  an  open 
gate  and  bridge,  I  followed  the  pack  into  a  large 
low  field,  surrounded  on  three  sides  by  the  wide 
brook.  The  fox  was  turned  by  this  and  ran  to 
the  right  along  the  bank;  at  the  corner  of  the 
field  he  turned  again  to  the  right,  still  keeping 
by  the  edge  of  the  stream ;  this  gave  the  hounds 
an  immense  advantage,  and  cutting  off  the  angle, 
they  came  so  closely  upon  him  that  with  still 
another  turn  of  the  brook  ahead  of  him,  he  had 
but  one  chance  for  his  life,  and  that  was  a  des- 
perate one  for  a  tired  fox  to  consider.  He  did  not 
consider,  but  went  slap  at  the  brook,  and  cleared 
it  with  a  leap  of  nearly  twenty  feet.  The  fore- 
most hounds  whimpered  for  a  moment  on  the 
bank  before  they  took  to  the  water,  and  when 


228  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

they  were  across  Reynard  was  well  out  of  sight, 
and  they  had  to  nose  out  his  trail  afresh.  He 
brought  them  again  to  a  check,  and  finally,  after 
half  an  hour's  skirmishing,  he  ran  down  a  railway 
cutting  in  the  wake  of  a  train,  and  got  away. 

Incidentally,  here  was  an  opportunity  for  an 
English  gentleman  to  show  more  good  temper 
and  breeding  than  it  is  one's  daily  lot  to  see. 
He  was  one  of  a  bridgeful  of  horsemen  watching 
the  hounds  as  they  vainly  tried  to  unravel  the 
fox's  scent  from  the  bituminous  trail  of  the  loco- 
motive, when,  full  of  eager  curiosity,  one  of  the 
ladies,  middle-aged  and  not  "native  and  to  the 
manner  born,"  but  not  an  American,  rode  directly 
on  to  his  horse's  heels.  To  the  confusion  of  my 
lady,  the  horse,  like  a  sensible  horse  as  he  was, 
resented  the  attack  with  both  his  feet.  His  rider 
got  him  at  once  out  of  the  way,  and  then  re- 
turned, bowing  his  venerable  head  in  regretful 
apology,  and  trusting  that  no  serious  harm  had 
been  done.  "How  can  you  ride  such  a  kicking 
brute ! "  was  the  gracious  acknowledgment  of  his 
forbearance. 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  229 

In  this  storied  little  island  one  is  never  for  long 
out  of  the  presence  of  places  on  the  traditions 
of  which  our  life-long  fancies  have  been  fed.  Our 
road  home  lay  past  the  indistinct  mass  of  rubbish, 
clustered  round  with  ivy  and  with  the  saddest 
associations,  which  was  once  Fotheringay  Castle; 
and  as  we  turned  into  the  village  my  companions 
pointed  out  the  still  serviceable  but  long-unused 
"stocks"  where  the  minor  malefactors  of  the 
olden  time  expiated  their  offences. 

We  reached  the  Haycock  at  three,  a  moist  but 
far  from  unpleasant  body  of  tired  and  dirty  men, 
having  ridden,  since  nine  in  the  morning,  over 
fifty-five  miles,  mostly  in  the  rain,  and  often  in 
a  shower  of  mud  splashed  by  galloping  hoofs. 
By  six  o'clock  we  were  in  good  trim  for  dinner, 
and  after  dinner  for  a  long,  cosey  talk  over  the 
events  of  the  day,  and  horses  and  fox-hunting  in 
general.  My  own  interest  in  the  sport  is  confined 
mainly  to  its  equestrian  side,  and  I  am  not  able 
to  give  much  information  as  to  its  details.  Any 
stranger  must  be  impressed  with  the  firm  hold 
it  has  on  the  affections  of  the  people,  and  with 


230  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

the  little  public  sympathy  that  is  shown  for  the 
rare  attempts  that  are  made  to  restrict  its  rights. 

It  would  seem  natural  that  the  farmers  should 
be  its  bitter  opponents.  It  can  hardly  be  a  cheer- 
ful sight,  in  March,  for  a  thrifty  man  to  see  a 
crowd  of  mad  horsemen  tearing  through  his 
twenty  acres  of  well-wintered  wheat,  filling  the 
air  with  a  spray  of  soil  and  uprooted  plants. 
But  let  a  non-riding  reformer  get  up  after  the 
annual  dinner  of  the  local  Agricultural  Associa- 
tion and  suggest  that  the  rights  of  tenant-farmers 
have  long  enough  lain  at  the  mercy  of  their  land- 
lord and  his  fox-hunting  friends,  with  the  rabble 
of  idle  sports  and  ruthless  ne'er-do-weels  who  fol- 
low at  their  heels,  and  that  it  is  time  for  them  to 
assert  themselves  and  try  to  secure  the  prohibi- 
tion of  a  costly  pastime,  which  leads  to  no  good 
practical  result,  and  the  burdens  of  which  fall  so 
heavily  on  the  producing  classes,  —  and  then  see 
how  his  brother  farmers  will  second  his  efforts. 
The  very  man  whose  wheat  was  apparently  ruined 
will  tell  him  that  in  March  one  would  have  said 
the  whole  crop  was  destroyed,  but  that  the  stir- 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  231 


ring  up  seemed  to  do  it  good,  for  he  had  never 
before  seen  such  an  even   stand   on   that   field. 
Another  will  argue  that  while  hunting  does  give 
him  some  extra  work  in  the  repair  of  hedges  and 
gates,  and  while  he  sometimes  has  his  fields  torn 
up  more  than  he  likes,  yet  the  hounds  are  the 
best  neighbors  he  has ;  they  bring  a  good  market 
for  hay  and  oats,  and,  for  his  part,  he  likes  to  get 
a  day  with  them  himself  now  and  then.     Another 
raises  a  young  horse  when  he  can,  and  if  he  turns 
out  a  clever  fencer,  he  gets  a  much  larger  price 
for  him  than  he  could  if  there  were  no  hunting 
in  the  country.     Another  has  now  and  then  lost 
poultry  by  the  depredations  of  foxes,  but  he  never 
knew  the  master  to  refuse  a  fair  claim  for  dam- 
ages ;  for  his  part,  he  would  scorn  to  ask  compen- 
sation ;  he  likes  to  see  the  noble  sport,  which  is 
the   glory   of   England,   flourishing,    in   spite  of 
modern  improvements.      At   this  point,   and   at 
this  stage  of  the  convivial  cheer,  they  bring  in 
the  charge  at  Balaklava,  and  other  evidences  that 
the  noble  sport,  which  is  the  glory  of  old  Eng- 
land, breeds  a  race  of  men  whose  invincible  daring 


232  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

always  has  won  and  always  shall  win  her  honor 
in  the  field;  —  and  Long  live  the  Queen,  and 
Here  's  a  health  to  the  Handley  Cross  Hunt,  and 
Confusion  to  the  mean  and  niggardly  spirit  that 
is  filling  the  country  with  wire  fences  and  that 
would  do  away  with  the  noble  sport  which  is 
the  glory  of  old  England  !  Hear !  hear  ! !  And 
so  it  ends,  and  half  the  company,  in  velvet  caps, 
scarlet  coats,  leathers  and  top-boots,  will  be  early 
on  the  ground  at  the  first  meet  of  the  next 
autumn,  glad  to  see  their  old  cover-side  friends 
once  more,  and  hoping  for  a  jolly  winter  of  such 
healthful  amusements  and  pleasant  intercourse  as 
shall  put  into  their  heads  and  their  hearts  and 
into  their  hearty  frames  and  ruddy  faces  a  tenfold 
compensation  for  the  trifling  loss  they  may  sustain 
in  the  way  of  broken  gates  and  trampled  fields. 

I  saw  too  little  to  be  able  to  form  a  fair  opinion 
as  to  the  harm  done;  but  when  once  the  run 
commences  no  more  account  is  made  of  wheat, 
which  is  carefully  avoided  when  going  at  a  slow 
pace,  than  if  it  were  so  much  sawdust;  fences 
are  torn  down,  and  there  is  no  time  to  replace 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  233 

them ;  if  gates  are  locked,  they  are  taken  off  the 
hinges  or  broken ;  if  sheep  join  the  crowd  in  an 
enclosure  and  follow  them  into  the  road,  no  one 
stops  to  see  that  they  are  returned  :  we  are  after 
the  hounds,  and  sheep  must  take  care  of  them- 
selves. I  saw  one  farmer,  in  an  excited  manner, 
open  the  gates  of  his  kitchen-garden  and  turn 
the  hounds  and  twenty  horsemen  through  it  as 
the  shortest  way  to  where  he  had  seen  the  fox 
go ;  his  womenfolk  eagerly  calling  "  Tally-ho ! "  to 
others  who  were  going  wrong.  I  have  never 
seen  a  railroad  train  stopped  because  of  the  con- 
ductor's interest  in  a  passing  hunt,  but  I  fancy 
that  is  the  only  thing  in  England  that  does  not 
stop  when  the  all-absorbing  interest  is  once  awak- 
ened. 

Whatever  may  be  the  effect  on  material  inter- 
ests, the  benefit  of  this  eager,  vigorous,  outdoor 
life  on  the  health  and  morals  of  the  people  is  most 
unmistakable.  Such  a  race  of  handsome,  hale, 
straight-limbed,  honest,  and  simple-hearted  men 
can  nowhere  else  be  found  as  in  the  wide  class  that 
passes  as  much  of  every  winter  as  is  possible  in 


234  WHIP  AND  SPUE. 


regular  fox-hunting;  and  to  make  an  application 
of  their  example,  we  could  well  afford  to  give  over 
many  of  our  fertile  fields  to  ruthless  destruction, 
and  many  of  our  fertile  hours  to  the  most  sense- 
less sport,  if  it  would  only  replace  our  dyspeptic 
stomachs,  sallow  cheeks,  stooping  shoulders,  and 
restless  eagerness  with  the  hale  and  hearty  and 
easy-going  life  and  energy  of  our  English  cousins. 
Hardly  enough  women  hunt  in  England  to  con- 
stitute an  example;  but  those  who  do  are  such 
models  of  health  and  freshness  as  to  make  one 
wish  that  more  women  had  the  benefit  of  such 
amusement  both  there  and  here.  It  is  very  com- 
mon to  see  men  of  over  sixty  following  the  hounds 
in  the  very  elite  of  the  field  ;  they  seem  still  in  the 
vigor  of  youth.  At  seventy  many  are  yet  regular 
at  their  work ;  and  it  is  hardly  remarkable  when 
one  finally  hangs  up  his  red  coat  only  at  the  age 
of  eighty.  Considering  all  this,  it  almost  becomes 
a  question  whether,  patriotism  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding,  it  would  not  be  a  good  thing  for 
a  prosperous  American,  instead  of  settling  down  at 
the  age  of  forty-five  to  a  special  partnership  and  a 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  235 

painful  digestion,  to  take  a  smaller  income  where 
it  would  bring  more  comfort,  and  by  a  judicious 
application  of  the  pig-skin  to  rehabilitate  his  en-, 
feebled  alimentation. 

Fox-hunting  is  a  costly  luxury  if  one  goes  well 
mounted  and  well  appointed.  It  can  hardly  be 
made  cheap,  even  when  one  lives  in  his  own 
house  and  rides  his  own  horses.  With  hotel  bills 
and  horse-hire,  it  costs  still  more.  As  an  occa- 
sional indulgence  it  is  always  a  good  investment. 
My  own  score  at  the  Haycock  was  as  follows,  —  by 
way  of  illustration,  and  because  actual  figures  are 
worth  more  than  estimates.  (I  was  there  from 
Thursday  afternoon  until  Sunday  morning,  went 
out  with  a  shooting-party  on  Friday,  dined  out  on 
Friday  night,  and  hunted  on  Saturday.) 

THE  HAYCOCK  INN. 

s.  d. 
Jan.  2.  Dinner  and  wine, 10  6 

Bed  and  fire, 3  6 

"  3.  Breakfast, 2  6 

Apartments,*  bed  and  fire,         .        .        .        .50 

Attendance,! 16 

*  The  run  of  the  house. 

+  We  are  apt  to  consider  this  a  petty  swindle,  but  it  has  the 
advantage  that  you  get  what  you  pay  for. 


236  WHIP  AND  SPUE. 

&  s.  d. 
Jan.  4.  Breakfast, 2  6 

Dinner  and  wine, 10  6 

Apartments,  bed  and  fire, 5  6 

Attendance, 16 

"  5.  Breakfast, 2  6 

Stable. 

Conveying  luggage  from  station,     ...         26 

Dog-cart  to  Sharks  Lodge, 10  6 

"      "    "  Oundle, 12  6 

"      "    "  Peterborough,  .        .        .        •        .80 

Thomas  Percival. 
Jan.  4.  Hire  of  hunter  to  Barnwell,  .        .        .        4  4  0 

"         hack     "        "  ....      10  6 

Eight  pounds,  twelve  shillings,  and  sixpence ; 
which  being  interpreted  means  $  47.30  in  the 
lawful  currency  of  the  United  States.  The  hunter 
and  hack  for  one  day  cost  $  23.52. 

An  American  friend  living  with  his  family  in 
Leamington  (much  more  cheaply  than  he  could 
live  at  home),  kept  two  hunters  and  a  hack,  and 
hunted  them  twice  a  week  for  the  whole  season 
(nearly  six  months)  at  a  cost,  including  the  loss  on 
his  horses,  which  he  sold  in  the  spring,  of  less 
than  $  1,500.  I  think  this  is  below  the  average 
expense. 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  237 

The  cost  of  keeping  up  a  pack  of  hounds  is 
very  heavy.  The  hounds  themselves,  a  well-paid 
huntsman,  two  or  three  whippers-in,  two  horses 
a  day  for  each  of  these  attendants  (hunting  four 
days  a  week,  this  would  probably  require  four 
horses  for  each  man),  and  no  end  of  incidental 
expenses,  bring  the  cost  to  fully  $  20,000  per 
annum.  This  is  sometimes  paid  wholly  or  in  part 
by  subscription  and  sometimes  entirely  by  the 
Master  of  the  Hounds.  One  item  of  my  friend's 
expenses  at  Leamington  was  a  subscription  of 
ten  guineas  each  to  the  Warwickshire,  North 
Warwickshire,  Atherstone,  and  Pytchley  hunts. 
Something  of  this  sort  would  be  necessary  if 
one  hunted  for  any  considerable  time  with  any 
subscription  pack,  but  an  occasional  visitor  is 
not  expected  to  contribute. 

A  stranger  participating  in  the  sport  need  only 
be  guided  by  common  modesty  and  common- 
sense.  However  good  a  horseman  he  may  be, 
he  cannot  make  a  sensation  among  the  old  stagers 
of  the  hunting-field.  Probably  he"  will  get  no 
commendation  of  any  sort.     If  he  does,  it  will  be 


238  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

for  keeping  out  of  the  way  of  others,  —  taking 
always  the  easiest  and  safest  road  that  will  bring 
him  well  up  with  the  hounds,  not  flinching  when 
a  desperate  leap  must  be  taken,  and  following  (at 
a  respectful  distance)  a  good  leader,  rather  than 
trying  to  take  the  lead  himself.  However  prom- 
ising the  prospect  may  be,  he  had  better  not  do 
anything  on  his  own  hook  ;  if  he  makes  a  conspic- 
uous mistake,  he  will  probably  be  corrected  for  it 
in  plainer  English  than  it  is  pleasant  to  hear. 

One  of  the  memorable  days  of  my  life  was  the 
day  before  New- Year's.  Ford  had  secured  me  a 
capital  hunter,  a  well- clipped  gelding,  over  six- 
teen hands  high,  glossy,  lean,  and  wiry  as  a  racer. 
"  You  've  got  a  rare  mount  to-day,  sir,"  said  the 
groom  as  he  held  him  for  me  to  get  up ;  and  a 
rare  dismount  I  came  near  having  in  the  little 
measure  of  capacity  with  which  Master  Dick  and 
I  commenced  our  acquaintance,  before  we  left  the 
Regent.  He  was  one  of  those  horses  whose  spirits 
are  just  a  little  too  much  for  their  skins,  and  all 
the  way  out  he  kept  up  a  restless  questioning  of 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  239 

his  prospect  of  having  his  own  way.  Still  he  was 
in  all  this,  as  in  his  manner  of  doing  his  work 
when  he  got  into  the  open  country,  such  a  perfect 
counterpart  of  old  Max,  who  had  carried  me  for 
two  years  in  the  Southwest,  that  I  was  at  home 
at  once.  If  I  had  had  a  hunter  made  to  order,  I 
could  not  have  been  more  perfectly  suited. 

The  meet  (North  Warwickshire)  was  at  Cub- 
bington  Gate,  only  two  miles  from  Leamington, 
and  a  very  gay  meet  it  was.  The  road  was  filled 
with  carriages,  and  there  was  a  goodly  rabble  on 
foot.  About  three  hundred,  in  every  variety  of 
dress,  were  mounted  for  the  hunt,  a  dozen  or  so  of 
ladies  among  them.  Three  of  these  kept  well  up 
all  day,  and  one  of  them  rode  very  straight.  The 
hounds  were  taken  to  a  wood  about  a  mile  to  the 
eastward  of  Cubbington,  where  they  soon  found  a 
fox,  which  led  us  a  very  straight  course  to  Prince- 
thorpe,  about  three  miles  to  the  northeast. 

I  had  done  little  fencing  for  seven  or  eight 
years,  and  the  sort  of  propulsion  one  gets  in  being 
carried  over  a  hedge  is  sufficiently  different  from 
the  ordinary  impulses  of  civil  life  to  suggest  at 


240  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

first  the  element  of  surprise.  Consequently, 
though  our  initial  leap  was  a  modest  one,  I  landed 
with  only  one  foot  in  the  stirrup  and  with  one 
hand  in  the  mane ;  but  I  now  saw  that  Dick  was 
but  another  name  for  Max,  and  this  one  moderate 
failure  was  enough  to  recall  the  old  tricks  of  the 
sraft.  As  the  opportunity  would  perhaps  never 
come  again,  this  one  was  not  to  be  neglected, 
and  I  resolved  to  have  one  fair  inside  view  of  real 
fox-hunting.  Dick  was  clearly  as  good  a  horse  as 
was  out  that  day  ;  the  leaping  was  less  than  that 
to  which  we  were  used  among  the  worm-fences, 
fallen  timber,  and  gullies  of  Arkansas  and  Ten- 
nessee ;  and  there  was  but  a  plain  Anglo-Saxon 
name  for  the  only  motive  that  could  deter  me 
from  making  the  most  of  the  occasion.  Mr.  Lant, 
the  Master  of  the  Hounds,  was  not  better  mounted 
for  his  lighter  weight  than  was  I  for  my  fourteen 
stone ;  and  his  position  as  well  as  his  look  indi- 
cated that  he  would  probably  go  by  the  nearest 
practicable  route  to  where  the  fox  might  lead,  so 
we  kept  at  a  safe  distance  behind  him  and  well  in 
his  wake.     The  hesitation  and  uncertainty  which 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  241 

■       ■  ■         ■   ^-*-  ...i—  -  ■  ■        ■  ■      ...      ■  .  i    ■      i   ■  — — —        .      j 

had  at  first  confused  my  bridle-hand  being  re- 
moved, my  horse,  recognizing  the  changed  position 
of  affairs,  settled  down  to  his  work  like  a  well- 
trained  and  sensible  but  eager  beast  as  he  was. 
From  the  covert  to  Princethorpe  we  took  seven 
fences  and  some  small  ditches,  and  we  got  there 
with  the  first  half-dozen  of  the  field,  both  of  us 
in  higher  spirits  than  horse  and  rider  ever  get 
except  by  dint  of  hard  going  and  successful  fen- 
cing. 

Here  there  was  a  short  check,  but  the  fox  was 
soon  routed  out  again  and  made  for  Waveley 
Wood,  a  couple  of  miles  to  the  northwest. 

"Waveley  Wood  is  what  is  called  in  England  a 
"  biggish  bit  of  timber,"  and  the  check  here  was 
long  enough  to  allow  the  whole  field  to  come 
up.  As  we  sat  chatting  and  lighting  our  cigars, 
"  Tally-ho  ! "  was  called  from  the  other  side  of 
the  cover,  and  we  splashed  through  a  muddy 
cart-road  and  out  into  the  open  just  as  the 
hounds  were  well  away.  Now  was  a  ride  for  dear 
life.  Every  one  had  on  all  the  speed  the  heavy 
ground  would  allow.  In  front  of  us  was  a  "  bull- 
11  p 


242  WHIP  AND  SPUR. 

finch"  (a  neglected  hedge,  out  of  which  strong 
thorny  shoots  of  several  years'  growth  have  run 
up  ten  or  twelve  feet  above  it).  I  had  often 
heard  of  bullfinches,  and  no  hunting  experience 
could  be  complete  without  taking  one.  It  was 
some  distance  around  by  the  gate,  the  pace  was 
strong,  and  the  spiny  fringe  had  just  closed  be- 
hind Mr.  Lant's  red  coat  as  he  dropped  into  the 
field  beyond.  "  Follow  my  leader "  is  a  game 
that  must  be  boldly  played ;  so,  settling  my  hat 
well  down,  holding  my  bridle-hand  low,  and  cov- 
ering my  closed  eyes  with  my  right  elbow,  with 
the  whip-hand  over  the  left  shoulder,  I  put  my 
heart  in  my  pocket  and  went  at  it,  and  through 
it  with  a  crash  !  An  ugly  scratch  on  the  fleshy 
part  of  the  right  hand  was  the  only  damage  done, 
and  I  was  one  of  the  very  few  near  the  pack. 
Dick  and  I  were  now  up  to  anything ;  we  made 
very  light  of  a  thick  tall  hedge  that  came  next 
in  order,  and  we  cleared  it  like  a  bird ;  but  we 
landed  in  a  pool  of  standing  water,  covering 
deeply  ploughed  ground,  the  horse's  forefeet 
sinking  so  deeply  that  he   could  not  get  them 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  243 

out  in  time,  and  our  headway  rolled  us  both 
over  in  the  mud,  I  flat  on  my  back.  Dick  got 
up  just  in  time  for  his  pastern  to  strike  me  in 
the  face  as  I  was  rising,  giving  me  a  cut  lip,  a 
mouthful  of  blood,  and  a  black  and  blue  nose- 
bridge.  My  appearance  has,  on  occasions,  been 
more  respectable  and  my  temper  more  serene 
than  as  I  ran,  soiled  and  bleeding,  over  the 
ploughed  ground,  calling  to  some  workmen  to 
"catch  my  horse." 

I  was  soon  up  and  away  again.  There  seemed 
some  confusion  in  the  run,  and  the  master  being 
out  of  sight,  I  followed  one  of  the  whips  as  he 
struck  into  a  blind  path  in  a  wood.  It  was  a 
tangled  mass  of  briers,  but  he  went  in  at  full 
pace,  and  evidently  there  was  no  time  to  be  lost. 
At  the  other  side  of  the  copse  there  was  a  set 
of  low  bars,  and  beyond  this  a  small,  slimy  ditch. 
My  leader  cleared  the  bars,  but  his  horse's  hind 
feet  slipped  on  the  bank  of  the  ditch,  and  he  fell 
backwards  with  an  ugly  kind  of  sprawl  that  I  had 
no  time  to  examine,  for  Dick  took  the  leap  easily 
and  soon  brought  me  into  a  field  where,  on  a  little 


244  WHIP  AND  SPUE. 

hillock,  and  quite  alone,  stood  the  huntsman,  dis- 
mounted, holding  the  dead  fox  high  in  his  left 
hand,  while  with  his  long-leashed  hunting-crop 
he  kept  the  hungry  and  howling  pack  at  bay. 
The  master  soon  came  up,  as  did  about  a  dozen 
others,  including  a  bright  little  boy  on  a  light 
little  pony.  The  fox's  head  (mask),  tail  (brush), 
and  feet  (pads)  were  now  cut  off  and  distributed 
as  trophies  under  the  master's  direction.  The 
carcass  was  then  thrown  to  the  pack,  that  fought 
and  snarled  over  it  until,  in  a  twinkling,  the  last 
morsel  had  disappeared.  This  was  the  "death," 
—  by  no  means  the  most  engaging  part  of  the 
amusement.  From  the  find  to  the  killing  was 
only  twenty-five  minutes,  into  which  had  been 
crowded  more  excitement  and  more  physical 
happiness  than  I  had  known  for  many  a  long 
day. 

The  second  cover  drawn  was  not  far  away. 
With  this  fox  we  had  two  hours'  work,  mainly 
through  woods  at  a  walk  and  with  the  hounds 
frequently  at  fault,  but  with  some  good  leaping. 
Finally  he  was  run  to  earth  and  abandoned. 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  ENGLAND.  245 

We  then  went  to  a  cover  near  Bubbenhall,  but 
found  no  fox,  and  then,  with  the  same  luck,  to 
another  east  of  Baggington.  It  was  now  nearly 
four  o'clock,  growing  dusk,  and  beginning  to  rain. 
The  hounds  started  for  their  kennels,  and  Dick 
and  I  took  a  soft  bridle-path  skirting  the  charm- 
ing road  that  leads,  under  such  ivy-clad  tree- 
trunks  and  between  such  hedges  as  no  other  land 
can  show,  through  Stoneleigh  Village  and  past 
Stoneleigh  Abbey  to  Leamington,  and  a  well- 
earned  rest. 

My  memorandum  for  that  day  closes  :  "  Horse, 
£  2  12  s.  Qd.;  Fees,  2  s.;  and  well  worth  the 
money." 


THE   END. 


Webster  Family  Library  of  Veterinary  Medicine 
Cumn  4  (if  veterinary  Medicine  at 

Tufts 

200  Wes 

North  Grafton,  MA  01538 


V 


:-  :i 

:"; 

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■  ;: 

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■  - . 

